Looking for the Respirator Medical Evaluation Questionnaire PDF? Read This First

That is the mandatory questionnaire. It is free, it is federal, and printing it costs almost nothing. So before we say anything else: yes, you can run your program on paper.

Now here is what the paper route actually involves, because “free” stops being free the moment an employee hands the completed form back.

The Paper MEQ Problem Nobody Warns You About

A completed MEQ is a medical record. It contains cardiopulmonary history, medications, and health conditions. The moment a supervisor collects it, faxes it, or drops it in a filing cabinet next to personnel files, your company is holding protected health information.

That creates three problems:

1. HIPAA exposure. Medical answers stored where employment decisions happen is exactly the situation health-privacy rules exist to prevent. The employer is only ever entitled to the determination: cleared or not cleared.
2. A 30-year commitment. Medical evaluation records carry long retention obligations, and clearance records must stay accessible under 29 CFR 1910.134(m)(1). Thirty years of paper for every employee who ever needed a respirator is a real filing burden with real audit risk when a page goes missing.
3. A PLHCP still has to review every form. Paper does not remove the review requirement of 1910.134(e). Someone still has to get each questionnaire to a licensed professional, get the determination back, and record it. That round trip is where the two-days-to-a-week delays live.

What the Online Route Changes

The questionnaire is the same federal instrument. What changes is everything around it:

• Employees complete it on any device, in English or Spanish, in about 15 minutes
• Answers go directly to a PLHCP, never through a supervisor’s hands
• Over 90% of evaluations clear in minutes through the screening algorithm; the rest get a PLHCP call-back
• The employer portal shows one thing per employee: cleared or not cleared
• Every determination becomes an audit-ready PDF, stored digitally for 30 years

Your safety team keeps the compliance record. The medical answers stay with the clinicians, encrypted and HIPAA-compliant. The free path costs you admin hours and privacy risk. The per-use path costs a known amount per clearance with no monthly fees.

Run your MEQs online instead

If You Keep Paper Anyway

No judgment, some programs have reasons. Three rules that keep a paper program defensible:

1. Sealed-envelope collection, straight to the PLHCP, never opened by the employer
2. Determination letters filed separately from the questionnaires themselves
3. A retention system that will still work in 2056

Our MEQ guide covers the full requirements, and the record retention guide covers what to keep.