The Loyola New Orleans background check and drug screen

Two screenings, both before your first rotation

Loyola New Orleans requires both screenings of every nursing student, and neither one is optional for online or out-of-state students. Per the Nursing Student Handbook, the School of Nursing's contracted company handles the background check, you pay for it, and no practicum takes place until it is complete. You also pay for the drug screen, which Loyola has you take at a facility it designates, ahead of your first clinical rotation.

Loyola's timing for the pair is less settled. The graduate bulletin allows 60 days from enrollment, while the program pages say thirty; the compliance requirements overview sets out that conflict and how to plan around it.

Graduate students meet these screenings shortly after admission, alongside the physical, BLS, insurance and immunizations. BSN and ABSN students face a double layer: the undergraduate bulletin lists the LSBN student license application, which carries a background check of its own, and the School of Nursing background check, plus a urine drug screen, before any clinical work.

The drug screen: a designated facility, and sometimes more than once

The drug screen happens at a facility Loyola designates, not at a lab you choose, and it comes before your first clinical rotation. The handbook adds that random or repeat tests may be required, and those are also at the student's expense, so a screen is not always a one-time event in your program.

Prescriptions deserve attention before test day. The handbook's graduate drug policy treats a positive result for medications without a provider's documentation as a positive screen. If you take a prescribed medication that could show up on a panel, gather your provider's documentation first and follow the facility's instructions for reporting it.

Keep your paperwork together. Your screen result is one of the three record types the FERPA consent lets Loyola release to sites, along with your immunizations and background check, so a site's onboarding team may ask to see it through Loyola during your placement review.

Medical cannabis and clinical affiliation agreements

The handbook addresses medical cannabis directly: holding a card does not excuse a positive screen. It ties the rule to the contracts, too. Under the clinical affiliation agreements Loyola signs with practicum sites, a student with a positive cannabis result cannot attend practicums.

This matters most to students in states with medical cannabis programs who assume a card settles the question. It does not at Loyola, and it does not at the sites Loyola contracts with. If this affects you, speak with your Program Director before your screen rather than after it.

Affiliation agreements shape more than screening. They decide whether a site can host you at all, and hours done before an agreement is signed are forfeited. The affiliation agreements guide explains the Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement and why site-written versions take longer.

Why students trust us with the timing

We plan your screening dates as part of the placement, not as an afterthought. Before we put a site forward, we ask whether it runs its own background or drug screen, how long its clearance takes and whether it charges a fee, and we tell you before you commit. We then time the preceptor search so your Loyola screenings are complete and your records are in Exxat before the Wishlist goes in.

Loyola's placement office and your faculty make the approval decision, and our aim is that by the time they open your request, your screenings are already done and on file. If your practicum starts soon, read need a preceptor fast or send your program and term through the contact form.