HIPAA Compliant SaaS Development: What It Really Takes
HIPAA Compliant SaaS Development: What It Really Takes
If you’re building a SaaS platform in healthcare, mental health, or insurance tech, you’re not just shipping features — you’re handling protected health information (PHI). That means you’re now in the world of HIPAA compliant SaaS development, whether you like it or not.
But here’s the catch: most dev agencies either don’t understand HIPAA at all — or they slap “secure” on their landing page and hope for the best.
At The SaaS Masters, we’ve built HIPAA-compliant platforms for therapy clinics, care coordination tools, and background screening providers. Here’s what actually goes into building HIPAA-compliant software — and how to avoid the legal, technical, and architectural landmines.
Compliance Isn’t a Feature — It’s a System
HIPAA isn’t something you “add.” It touches every layer of your platform:
Infrastructure (AWS or Azure must be covered by a signed BAA)
User authentication (multi-factor, role-based access)
Logging (audit trails for PHI access)
Storage (encryption at rest and in transit, backups, etc.)
Admin tools (granular permissioning and activity logs)
If your system touches PHI — even temporarily — it must be protected by design.
Your Infrastructure Partner Must Sign a BAA
If you’re using AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, you must have a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) signed with them.
Elastic Beanstalk or ECS for controlled deployments
Without a BAA, your entire app is technically noncompliant — even if everything else is perfect.
Authentication Must Be Bulletproof
No HIPAA-compliant SaaS can get away with default auth.
Required:
Encrypted passwords (bcrypt, Argon2)
Email and multi-factor auth (MFA)
Role-based access — not everyone should see everything
Session logging to track who accessed what, when
If you’re using something like AWS Cognito, Okta, or Auth0, make sure your setup honors HIPAA controls out of the box — and that your custom code doesn’t punch holes in it.
