--- question: "How much does a HIPAA audit cost?" title: "How Much Does a HIPAA Audit Cost" seoTitle: "HIPAA Audit Cost: Risk Assessments, Attestations, OCR" summary: "A third-party HIPAA risk assessment costs roughly $5,000 to $20,000 for a small organization, and a formal third-party HIPAA attestation examination costs roughly $10,000 to $30,000 or more depending on size. The third thing people call a HIPAA audit, an investigation by the HHS Office for Civil Rights, is not a service you can buy; its costs are legal fees and potential penalties. There is no official government-issued HIPAA audit and no official HIPAA certification, so every price in this market is for private assessment work. Costs scale with scope: the number of systems that touch PHI, how PHI flows between them, and the size of the workforce." publishedAt: "2026-08-22" keywords: - "HIPAA audit cost" - "HIPAA risk assessment cost" - "HIPAA attestation price" - "HIPAA compliance cost small business" pillar: "SOC 2 Cost and Budget" faqs: - question: "Is there an official HIPAA audit?" answer: "No. HHS does not issue HIPAA certifications and does not offer an audit you can purchase. The closest thing to an official audit is an investigation or compliance review by the Office for Civil Rights, which is a regulatory action triggered by a breach report or complaint, not a service. Everything sold as a HIPAA audit is private assessment work." - question: "How often do you need a HIPAA risk assessment?" answer: "Annually is the accepted practice, and after any significant change such as a new system handling PHI, a migration, or a breach. The Security Rule requires risk analysis to be performed periodically rather than naming a fixed interval, so the annual cadence is convention that auditors and buyers expect rather than a written deadline." - question: "How much does HIPAA compliance cost for a small business?" answer: "A small business doing the work internally can spend close to nothing in fees: the risk assessment, policies, and training can all be done in-house with staff time. Bringing in a consultant for the risk assessment typically adds roughly $5,000 to $20,000, and compliance software runs from a few thousand dollars a year. The main hidden cost is the technical work of fixing what the assessment finds." - question: "Can a person go to jail for violating HIPAA?" answer: "Yes. Criminal HIPAA violations are prosecuted by the Department of Justice and can carry prison sentences of up to 10 years for offenses committed with intent to sell, transfer, or use PHI for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm. Civil enforcement by OCR is different: it produces fines and corrective action plans, not jail time." - question: "Are HIPAA violations taken seriously?" answer: "Yes. OCR settlements regularly reach six and seven figures, and enforcement usually includes a multi-year corrective action plan with government monitoring on top of the payment. Cases involving deliberate misuse of PHI can be referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution, so the exposure goes beyond fines." --- ## How much does a HIPAA audit cost? It depends on which of three things you mean. A third-party HIPAA risk assessment runs roughly $5,000 to $20,000 for a small organization. A formal third-party attestation examination against the HHS rules runs roughly $10,000 to $30,000 or more depending on size. And an OCR investigation, the only audit-like event with government force behind it, is not something you buy at all. There is no official HIPAA audit and no official HIPAA certification, so every quoted price is for private work. ### The three things "HIPAA audit" can mean | What people mean | What it actually is | Rough cost | |---|---|---| | Risk assessment or gap assessment | A review of how PHI moves through your systems and where safeguards fall short; required by the Security Rule and can be done internally | Roughly $5,000 to $20,000 with a third-party consultant for a small organization; internal cost is staff time | | Third-party attestation or examination | An independent firm examines your safeguards against the Privacy and Security Rules and issues a report you can show customers | Roughly $10,000 to $30,000 or more, scaling with organization size | | OCR investigation | A regulatory action by the HHS Office for Civil Rights, triggered by a breach report or complaint | Not purchasable; costs arrive as legal fees, corrective action plans, and potential penalties | When a customer asks for proof of your HIPAA compliance, they usually mean the second row. When your own team says "we should get a HIPAA audit," they usually mean the first. ## What drives the price Scope. An assessor prices the engagement on the number of systems that store or transmit PHI, the number of PHI flows between them and to vendors, workforce size, and physical locations. A ten-person telehealth startup with one cloud environment sits at the bottom of the ranges above. A multi-site provider group with an EHR, imaging systems, and dozens of business associates sits well past the top of them. The quoted fee is also not the whole cost. An assessment produces findings, and remediating them, tightening access, adding logging, signing missing BAAs, writing the policies that do not exist yet, is engineering and administrative time the assessor's invoice never shows. ## There is no official certification to buy This is the fact that reframes the budget question. HHS certifies nothing and endorses no assessor, so no amount of spending produces a government-recognized HIPAA credential. A third-party attestation is still worth paying for, because customers accept it as evidence, but it is evidence of a private examination, and any vendor selling a "HIPAA certification" is selling exactly that. What the law actually requires is the underlying work: a documented risk analysis, safeguards that operate, and BAAs with every vendor that touches PHI. ## Where Screenata fits Screenata covers the readiness and evidence side of that work: the documented risk assessment, policies generated from scans of your actual infrastructure, and about 70% of evidence collected automatically, packaged in cryptographically signed evidence packs. The HIPAA program costs $5,988/year per framework ($499/mo) for teams under 50 employees; see [/pricing](/pricing). If a customer requires a third-party examination on top of that, the examining firm is independent and its fee is separate.