CONFIDENTIALITY OF QCARE APPLICANT INFORMATION

ARAWC’s mission and the over-arching goal of QCARE are to protect and promote Texas injury benefit plans for the benefit of all ARAWC members.  So, from inception, the QCARE program infrastructure was developed to address employer and insurance industry concerns regarding confidentiality.  Those protections have been even further enhanced.  Here’s a summary:

1. Not Seeking Any Confidential Information.  ARAWC is NOT seeking to gather any insurance policy forms or endorsements, policy renewal dates, limits of coverage, premium-related information, claims information, or any other employer or program data. 
2. Simple Application and Verification Procedures.  The QCARE application is very simple and the employer (or its authorized representative) self-certifies to satisfaction of the 10 QCARE requirements.  Basic employer contact information (email and phone) is requested solely to facilitate the verification that certain QCARE requirements have been met on a sampling of applications.  For example, on every 15^th QCARE application, a basic insurance coverage verification can be done through email or a phone call from the employer’s insurance agent. 
3. Administrative Team. QCARE applicant information is received and protected within a small group (the “Administrative Team”) comprised of (A) three QCARE Committee members (currently, designated representatives from Big Lots, Sysco Foods and Walmart), (B) the Program Administrator (Virtual, Inc.), and (C) the QCARE webmaster (Real News PR).  No insurance company or program manager, attorney, consultant, claims administrator, insurance broker, agent or other service provider is eligible to serve on this Administrative Team or receive any QCARE applicant information.
4. Confidentiality Agreements have been signed by each member of this small Administrative Team.  Information from QCARE applicants can NOT be made available to other ARAWC members (even others within ARAWC leadership) or the public in any form or manner.
5. Information containment and destruction.  Each member of the Administrative Team maintains secure systems, and has agreed to a policy for document retention and destruction within 30 days of a final decision on a QCARE application. 
6. No database or solicitation.  No database or similar aggregation of information submitted by employers or agents will be constructed or maintained, other than the Employer Registry and basic, publicly-available contact information. The Employer Registry on the QCARE website provides only the names of employers that have voluntarily elected to put their names on that list.  No information submitted can be used for solicitation of business.

Questions or comments on QCARE’s confidentiality protections can be sent to [email protected]