One of the core programs of NADP is to conduct market research on the dental benefits industry and behalf of NADP's members. This function is guided by the Research Commission, which consists of volunteers from member dental plans and is staffed by the Director of Research and Information. Due to the sensitivity of the information received by NADP to report on the current state of the dental benefits industry, NADP has put in place several guidelines, procedures, and technology solutions to ensure the confidentiality of data provided by the participating member and non-member plans. There are three basic categories of measures that NADP has put in place to protect the confidential nature of the data dental plans share for research and reporting.

NADP Reporting Guidelines

  1. For NADP's published Statistical Reports, data is only reported in aggregate form. No NADP-published reports include data that can be identified with a specific company. As a result, NADP cannot publish market share data or any other benchmarking data associated with a particular company or plan.

However, as a member benefit, NADP assists in collecting sales data for LIMRA's quarterly U.S. Group Dental Sales and In-Force Report, which provides for reporting of specific company data.  That data is, however, collected with the permission of carriers to identify them to other report participants only.  Public versions of the Report do not include carrier names.

  1. For additional confidentiality, NADP only reports aggregated data when at least four companies provide data for a particular question.  There are instances in benchmark reporting where individual data points can be identified, such as reporting ranges, but this data can never be identified with a particular reporting plan.

NADP Data Confidentiality

  1. The NADP Research Director has signed an additional confidentiality agreement that specifically addresses the sensitivity of member data and places restrictions on using that information in any capacity that reveals an individual company's news.
  2. All member data used for NADP Research and Statistical Reports are only available to NADP's Research Director. While Research Commission members provide an oversight and review function for NADP's Statistical Reports, Research Commission members do not have access to any data supplied to NADP except for that of their own company.
  3. Other than research reports, member data is sometimes used to support NADP's government relations objectives. The reporting standard only in aggregate form is also applied to these requests. Requests to produce information for this purpose are made to the Research Director, who determines what is available and provides the relevant summary data.

NADP Data Security Processes

NADP has implemented the following technical solutions to ensure member data is properly protected, as indicated in the Data Confidentiality section above.

  1. All member data is stored on a cloud-based private server that is only accessible to NADP’s Research Director. There are no instances where member data is stored on a desktop or laptop computer hard drive.
  2. Research data and all email communications are stored on a cloud-based drive. Strict security measures are taken to reach regulatory compliance across the industry and vertical-specific standards, including:
      • SOC I
      • SOC 2 Type II
      • US-EU & US-Swiss Safe Harbor
      • CI Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)
      • Vertical Specific Compliance: HIPAA

For questions, please contact Director of Research Jerry Berggren.