If you build SaaS for healthcare customers in the US, security assurance eventually becomes part of the product conversation.
Not because customers want another badge on your website, but because enterprise buyers need evidence that vendors have appropriate controls around sensitive systems and information.
That is why SOC 2 and HITRUST frequently appear in healthcare vendor assessments.
The two should not be treated as interchangeable.
SOC 2 evaluates controls against the AICPA Trust Services Criteria. Security is required, while other criteria such as availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy can be included according to the engagement.
For a SaaS company, this makes SOC 2 useful well beyond healthcare. If the product serves several industries, a SOC 2 report can provide assurance that applies across a broad customer base.
You can explore the SOC 2 assurance offering when considering how this type of independent examination fits into a SaaS security program.
HITRUST approaches the problem differently.
The HITRUST CSF combines requirements from multiple authoritative sources into a structured framework and provides an assessment and certification model. This makes it particularly relevant to organizations operating in healthcare environments where customers may want assurance that takes healthcare-related security and privacy expectations into account.
The important part for engineering and security teams is not simply knowing that both frameworks exist. It is understanding what each one is actually demonstrating.
A SOC 2 report does not automatically equal HITRUST certification.
There may be substantial overlap in controls around identity and access management, risk management, monitoring, incident response, vendor management, continuity, and change management. However, the assessment models and requirements remain different.
This distinction becomes important when a healthcare customer asks for a specific certification.
Imagine a SaaS company already has SOC 2 Type II. A hospital procurement team then requests HITRUST. The company should not assume that its existing report closes the requirement simply because many controls overlap.
Instead, it needs to compare the existing assurance scope with the customer's expectations and the applicable HITRUST requirements.
The reverse can also happen. A company may have HITRUST certification because healthcare customers expect it, while a large enterprise customer outside healthcare requests SOC 2.
This is why mature SaaS organizations sometimes maintain both.
The decision should ultimately follow the market.
If your customers are primarily general enterprise technology buyers, SOC 2 may be central to your assurance strategy. If healthcare organizations specifically request HITRUST, that requirement needs to be considered independently.
And if the business serves both groups, maintaining multiple assurance mechanisms may make commercial sense.
The useful question is therefore not “Which framework is better?”
It is:
Which assurance evidence do our customers actually expect, and does our current control environment demonstrate it?
That question gives security, compliance, and business teams a much more practical starting point.
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