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The Justice Department (DOJ) announced that the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020 was signed into law on Jan. 13.

NADP continues to represent the dental benefits industry to key stakeholders. Following are highlights from this past month.

After an extensive campaign spanning the COVID-19 pandemic and widescale protests on racial justice, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. has been elected 46th President of the United States. As of publication of this article, approximately 78 million votes were cast for Biden and 73 million for Trump, the highest percentage turnout since 1964, when the voting age was 21.

On Nov. 12, Joe Manchin (D-WV) introduced S.4894, the DOC Access Act, in the Senate.

On Tuesday, Nov. 17, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in California v. Texas, the case on the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the severability of the individual mandate from the rest of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

On Nov. 9, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final rule “Medicaid Program; Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Managed Care” (CMS 2408-F), which finalizes changes to Medicaid and CHIP managed care plan requirements alongside other alterations. In January 2019, NADP filed comments on the proposed rule, voicing support for changes in tagline requirements, grievance/appeals support, and asking for a carve-out for dental benefits in the existing MMC medical loss ratio reporting requirements. Both the information reporting requirements and grievance changes were finalized; however, the rule keeps the existing MLR framework in place.

The NADP Research Commission supports the Association’s mission by gathering data and information to generate and disseminate industry knowledge.

The close of the year is a great time to evaluate our progress as an organization. This past year is one we will always remember as filled with unique challenges, which tested our resolve and problem-solving abilities. As I review the events of 2020, I am proud of NADP’s accomplishments and continued service to our members. I am also proud of the extraordinary work of the entire NADP staff throughout this challenging year. Following are some key NADP contributions.

One of the first NADP programs launched in 2020 was an expansion of the Webinar program to include free registrations for all members on all webinars – including 2020 webinars and the library of recorded webinars from previous years.

With more than 50 presentations focused on a wide array of areas including key trends, management and operations, DSOs or government relations topics, NADP Webinar Recordings deliver dental specific content designed to help you succeed.

The Coronavirus pandemic has been disruptive to the Research Agenda for 2020, but also presented opportunities for industry collaboration to quickly address the impact on the dental benefits industry through NADP’s Research program. The ability for plans to respond to planned industry surveys was significantly reduced, especially during local government-imposed lockdowns, staff furloughs and the rapid shift to remote work for NADP staff and for member companies. As a reaction to this circumstance, the Research Commission revised the 2020 Industry Research Agenda to accommodate the situation. Several industry reports have been delayed due to lagging response from members; others were delayed by the Research Commission to accommodate resource limitations of member companies. A new report, Benefit Utilization, was changed to increase frequency of data collection deemed vital to inform NADP’s response to the pandemic, and a series of ad hoc surveys and reports was conducted to assess issues particular to pandemic response.