Given how complex and time-consuming HIPAA compliance has become, it’s unsurprising that a growing number of software solutions have hit the market – all promising to make the process smoother, simpler, and more efficient.
But which software will serve your organization’s specific needs – and how can you be sure a better solution isn’t out there?
This article explores the top five HIPAA compliance tools currently available. With a clear overview of the market, we believe it will help healthcare organizations find solutions that take the headache out of HIPAA – and ensure your patients’ data remains safe.
What is HIPAA Compliance Software?
HIPAA compliance software refers to any tool that helps healthcare organizations stay compliant with HIPAA. This is a broad category, ranging from comprehensive solutions to highly targeted tools that focus on a single facet of HIPAA compliance.
However, most tools will focus on one of the following:
- Security risk assessments and privacy/breach assessments: Software often helps streamline these processes, make assessment requirements clearer, or simply enable security teams to complete their assessments more quickly.
- HIPAA remediation: From planning to executing risk remediation, software can help security teams ensure they deal with threats identified in their assessments efficiently and effectively.
- HIPAA training: This can range from ensuring employees have up-to-date knowledge of HIPAA regulations to providing training to help them handle protected health data (PHI) safely.
Why is HIPAA Compliance Software Important?
Every healthcare organization faces different cybersecurity challenges. But as HIPAA compliance software vendor, we notice that three common challenges lead organizations to seek out HIPAA compliance software:
- Regulatory complexity: HIPAA can be intimidating for many organizations, especially those without a dedicated security team. The right software helps such teams navigate that complexity and understand what is required to stay compliant.
- Resource scarcity: Most healthcare organizations struggle with limited cybersecurity budgets and need to fulfill their HIPAA obligations in a most efficient way – which software often enables them to do.
- Time sensitivity: Whether you need to scale HIPAA processes across an enterprise network or have left your annual risk assessment to the last minute, software can accelerate key processes.
Who Needs HIPAA Compliance Tools?
HIPAA applies to covered entities and business associates. A covered entity can be a healthcare provider, a health plan (health insurance carrier), or a healthcare clearinghouse that processes and translates health information. A business associate performs functions for covered entities that involve the use of protected health information (PHI). You can find more information on these definitions by visiting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website.
As a result, HIPAA rules apply to an immense range of different organizations, from a single-office medical practice to a medium-sized healthcare software company, to a 100-hospital Integrated Delivery Network (IDN), and everything in between. Therefore, software products and services that help with HIPAA compliance and security will have different capabilities that suit a wide range of needs and price points.
To help simplify the qualities that matter to your organization, we have summarized the most important questions that we have learned from doing thousands of HIPAA Security Risk Assessments (SRAs) for clients of all sizes for the past 8+ years.
Completing Your Security Risk Assessment: Key Questions
- How can these features make it easier to do so and stay in compliance year after year?
- How can you navigate the process successfully without a specialist on staff?
- How can you be sure that your SRA will successfully pass an Office of Civil Rights (OCR) Audit if something happens? Will your SRA and remediation plan prove your organization has a “Culture of Compliance”?
- Can you get the expert help you may need while lowering the overall cost of ownership?
- Does the system make it easy for your team to collaborate with minimal friction?
- Can the system support federal requirements if you are a multi-entity organization?
- Can the system show and track progress in both the SRA and remediation plan, helping demonstrate a “Culture of Compliance”, even if you can’t fix everything at once?
The top 5 most widely used HIPAA compliance software vendors and packages that we see in the market include HIPAA One™ (of course!), Compliancy Group, Health and Human Services SRAT (Security Risk Assessment Tool), ClearData Assess, and Clearwater Compliance’s HIPAA offering. As you consider which package is the best fit, evaluate how the questions above apply to your organization then evaluate any offering against these questions.
Top 5 HIPPA Compliance Software Vendors
1. Intraprise Health’s HIPAA One™
The best package for everyone hands down! Of course, we will say that. Seriously, our focus has been to serve the widest range of clients by building on our early ease-of-use advantage and building out a feature set that grows alongside the needs of the clients we are serving.
We have recently released a version of HIPAA One™ with enterprise features that provide class-leading, automatic synchronization across the parent/child security relationships. As the only HIPAA software package from a leading HITRUST Assessor, we bring a level of security knowledge and supporting service delivered through our product that is second to none.
2. Compliancy Group
Compliancy Group’s HIPAA software offers scores points for ease of use and has OSHA support, if that is important for your organization. It has found a good following among smaller practices that are price-sensitive and willing to work with online support.
3. US Department of Health and Human Services Security Risk Assessment Tool (SRAT)
The federal government has provided a free tool that, if the questions are completed correctly (and understood by the user), will meet the Office of Civil Rights guidance for a correctly prepared Security Risk Assessment (SRA).
Like many things in life, free involves a tradeoff; using the tool will take more time and more knowledge and involve increased risk if you intend to rely on the results. If you have the time, taking some energy to try this tool will help you better understand and appreciate the value provided by the companies mentioned here. Lastly, HHS has a disclaimer on their SRAT page that states that the use of the tool won’t necessarily hold up to an audit and is not updated often.
4. ClearDATA Assess
ClearData’s Assess is an enterprise-focused platform that is provided alongside a consulting engagement with a very good risk plan as the final deliverable. For organizations looking for Risk Analysts to deliver their SRA annually, this is an option.
5. Clearwater Compliance HIPAA Module
This solution is a comprehensive product frequently used as part of a consulting engagement for large organizations requiring domain expertise. It has a comprehensive menu system that appears simple to use yet requires careful checking of answers. There are limited support options for smaller practices due to price sensitivity.
We hope you found this brief survey helpful. The most important takeaway from this article is to consider your organization’s needs against the key questions when making a selection.
Ready to implement a solution that will automate your entire compliance process while supporting you with the help of our expert-validated assessors? Book a free HIPAA One ® demo.
