SOC 2 for Healthcare
SOC 2 for healthcare technology companies — how SOC 2 intersects with HIPAA and what auditors focus on in health data environments.
Key Trust Service Criteria
- →Security (CC6–CC9)
- →Confidentiality (C1)
- →Privacy (P1–P8)
Industry-Specific Risks
- ✗ePHI overlap with HIPAA
- ✗Third-party integrations with EHR systems
- ✗Patient data breach liability
Healthcare technology vendors — from EHR integrations to telehealth platforms — face an unusual compliance environment where SOC 2 and HIPAA overlap but neither replaces the other. Enterprise health systems and payers ask for both.
The SOC 2 Privacy criteria (P1–P8) are increasingly requested for health-adjacent software because they specifically address notice, consent, and personal information management in a way HIPAA doesn't audit. Auditors in healthcare deals focus heavily on encryption of ePHI in transit and at rest, access logs for PHI stores, and Business Associate Agreement coverage of all sub-processors.
Healthcare SOC 2 engagements almost always extend the system boundary to include your data warehouse and any ML pipeline that touches patient data. If you use a cloud AI API (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) to process clinical notes, that provider must appear in your vendor risk management program.
Common healthcare SOC 2 gaps: audit logs don't capture read events on patient records (only writes), encryption key management is informal, sub-processors like Twilio or SendGrid aren't covered by DPAs, and no breach notification runbook exists.
Use the free SOC 2 Readiness Checklist to score your controls before your first auditor call.
Check your SOC 2 readiness now
Free 5-minute self-assessment — score your Healthcare controls against the 23 most-tested SOC 2 criteria.
Run free SOC 2 readiness check →