30% surge in Texas healthcare cyber incidents in Q4 2025, per the Texas Q4 2025 Threat Intelligence Brief. Nacogdoches Memorial Hospital lost 2.5 million patient records in October 2025 — a corrective action plan, OCR investigation, and breach notification to every affected patient followed. The cost isn't the ransom. It's what comes after. CoreRecon delivers HIPAA-mapped SOC coverage, 24/7 monitoring, and 30-minute breach response at $89–$129/endpoint — no enterprise contract required.
Healthcare is the most-breached sector in the US for the 13th consecutive year (IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2024). Texas regional hospitals, specialty practices, and health systems are high-value targets with limited security resources. The threat actors know this.
An OCR investigation begins with a complaint or self-reported breach notification. Investigators request documentation of your HIPAA Security Rule compliance program: risk analysis, risk management plan, workforce training records, access control policies, audit log retention, and incident response documentation. The absence of documentation is itself a violation — even if the underlying security was adequate, you cannot prove it without records.
Corrective action plans (CAPs) require multi-year monitoring agreements where OCR reviews your remediation progress. Civil monetary penalties range from $100 to $50,000 per violation category per year, with maximums up to $1.9M per category. In 2024, OCR collected over $9M in HIPAA penalties from healthcare organizations. The average CAP runs 2–3 years and requires quarterly reporting to OCR.
Texas HB 300 adds state-level requirements on top of federal HIPAA: breach notification to affected individuals is required faster than the federal 60-day window when technically feasible, and civil penalties under the Texas Medical Records Privacy Act can reach $1.5M per calendar year. Texas AG's office has concurrent enforcement authority.
The HIPAA Security Rule specifies 18 standards across Administrative, Physical, and Technical safeguard categories. Most healthcare organizations check boxes — we build programs. Here's how CoreRecon controls map to what OCR actually audits. See the full guide at /resources/hipaa-compliance-guide.
| HIPAA Safeguard | Standard | Common Gap | CoreRecon Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative | Security Management Process — Risk Analysis & Risk Management | Annual checkbox risk analysis with no remediation tracking; gaps identified but not addressed before next year's review | Sentinel Continuous risk monitoring, documented risk management plan, quarterly posture reviews aligned to NIST CSF |
| Administrative | Workforce Security — Authorization, Supervision, Termination | Terminated employee accounts remain active for weeks; shared credentials on EHR systems; no access recertification process | Sentinel Identity lifecycle management, automated deprovisioning alerts, privileged access review, MFA on all EHR access |
| Administrative | Contingency Plan — Backup, Disaster Recovery, Emergency Mode | Backup exists but has never been tested; no documented RTO/RPO; EHR vendor contract does not include DR support | Fortress Encrypted immutable backup, tested restore procedures, documented RTO/RPO, emergency mode operation plan |
| Administrative | Business Associate Contracts — Vendor Oversight | BAAs exist but BA security posture has never been assessed; Change Healthcare pattern — BA breach = covered entity liability | Fortress BA security questionnaires, third-party risk monitoring, BAA audit support, vendor access controls |
| Technical | Access Controls — Unique User ID, Automatic Logoff, Encryption | Shared workstation logins; no automatic logoff on clinical workstations; PHI stored in unencrypted spreadsheets outside EHR | Sentinel Unique user ID enforcement, session timeout policy, endpoint encryption, DLP monitoring for PHI outside EHR |
| Technical | Audit Controls — Hardware, Software, Procedural Mechanisms | EHR audit logs not reviewed; no SIEM aggregation of audit events; logs deleted after 30 days (HIPAA requires 6-year retention) | Fortress SIEM-aggregated audit logging, 6-year retention, anomalous access alerting, monthly audit log review reports |
| Technical | Transmission Security — Encryption in Transit | Legacy fax-to-email workflows transmitting PHI unencrypted; patient portal using outdated TLS versions; VPN not enforced for remote EHR access | Sentinel TLS enforcement monitoring, encrypted communications policy, VPN enforcement for remote EHR access, legacy protocol detection |
| Technical | Incident Response — Identification, Response, Reporting | No documented IR plan; no designated security incident response team; breach discovered via patient complaint, not monitoring | Command 30-min SLA IR with pre-authorized PHI isolation protocol, HIPAA breach notification package, OCR reporting workflow, post-incident documentation for CAP defense |
Full 18-standard alignment matrix, BAA handling procedures, and audit documentation templates available at CoreRecon HIPAA Compliance Guide. SOC operates 24/7. Audit log retention at 6 years minimum. Breach response includes OCR notification package.
10-endpoint minimum. Month-to-month. Designed for hospitals, specialty practices, and regional health systems without a dedicated security team — and priced so the CFO can approve it without a 6-month procurement cycle.
30-minute SLA applies to Command tier. Not next-business-day. The HIPAA 60-day breach notification clock starts at discovery — but the OCR investigation timeline starts from when you should have discovered the breach. Having an analyst on the call within 30 minutes means you're building the incident timeline and breach analysis in real time, not reconstructing it under regulatory deadline pressure. Command tier includes a pre-built OCR notification package and OCR investigation support.
18 questions. All 18 HIPAA Security Rule standards. Instant scored results. Email your report to get John's remediation priorities in your inbox — no demo required.
Takes ~8 minutes. Covers Administrative, Physical, and Technical Safeguards.
Generic MSSPs handle IT security. Healthcare organizations need HIPAA mapping, PHI-aware monitoring, 30-min breach response, and TX HB 300 support. Here's how the dimensions that matter most compare.
| Dimension | CoreRecon | Cybriant | Trustwave |
|---|---|---|---|
| HIPAA Security Rule Mapping | All 18 standards explicitly mapped to service tiers. Audit log retention at 6 years. HIPAA risk analysis documentation. OCR investigation support in Command tier. | IT-focused MDR and SIEM. HIPAA compliance framed as a customer responsibility. No documented 18-standard alignment in published materials. | Compliance support available through professional services. Requires separate HIPAA engagement at enterprise pricing. Not included in standard MSSP contract. |
| 30-Min Breach SLA | 30-minute SLA on Command tier. Pre-authorized PHI isolation. OCR breach notification package prepared in parallel with incident response. | 4-hour SLA documented in published agreements. No healthcare-specific breach response SLA differentiation. | SLA varies by contract tier. Enterprise SLAs start at 1-hour. No PHI-specific response commitment in published materials. |
| Transparent Pricing | $89/$129/endpoint published publicly. Command at $2,500+/month custom. 10-endpoint minimum, month-to-month. | Quoted per engagement. No published pricing. Healthcare organizations report 6–12 month sales cycles before a contract number. | Enterprise contracts. No published pricing. Minimum engagements typically reported at $100K+ annually by industry sources. |
| SDVOSB & TX-Native | SDVOSB-certified. Texas-based team. TX HB 300 compliance built into Fortress tier. Nacogdoches-pattern breach response experience. | National firm. No SDVOSB certification. No Texas-specific SOC or TX HB 300 compliance support documented. | Global MSSP. No SDVOSB designation. Texas HB 300 framed as professional services add-on. |
We map your PHI attack surface, assess EHR access controls against the HIPAA Security Rule, identify business associate risk, and benchmark your breach notification posture against OCR enforcement patterns. No credit card. No commitment. Delivered in 14 days.
Request your free $2,500 assessment →Delivered within 14 days • No credit card • SDVOSB-certified team
See a sample report — redacted 12-page PDF, real findings.
Yes. CoreRecon signs a Business Associate Agreement before accessing any PHI or PHI-adjacent systems. Our BAA is available for review prior to contract signing and follows standard HHS model BAA language with terms appropriate for a managed security service provider. We cover all HIPAA-required BA obligations: use limitation, safeguard requirements, subcontractor requirements, breach notification to covered entity within 24 hours of discovery, and cooperation with OCR investigations. If you have a custom BAA template from your legal team, we'll work with it. BAAs are standard, not an add-on — every healthcare engagement begins with one.
We monitor for unauthorized access patterns and anomalous behavior — we do not access patient clinical data as part of our service. Our monitoring operates on security event telemetry: login events, access logs, network traffic metadata, authentication failures, and system behavior signals. We do not ingest, read, or process EHR clinical content. When a security event requires investigation, our analysts examine access patterns and system logs to determine whether PHI was accessed, by whom, and whether that access was authorized — which is exactly what OCR expects a covered entity's incident response to document. We never view or process the clinical content of patient records directly. This scope is documented in the BAA.
Command tier: we detect the incident, notify you within 30 minutes, and begin building the breach analysis package in parallel with containment. The breach notification package includes: incident timeline, scope of PHI potentially affected, nature of the breach, whether the PHI was encrypted (affecting notifiability), and initial risk assessment per the four-factor HIPAA breach risk analysis. For the federal 60-day clock and Texas HB 300's faster state requirement, having a completed breach analysis within 72 hours of containment — rather than 3–4 weeks of forensics — materially changes your notification posture. Fortress tier includes TX HB 300 notification workflow support. Sentinel tier provides detection and escalation; notification package preparation is a Command tier capability. We also maintain template OCR correspondence pre-drafted for common breach scenarios so you're not writing from scratch under deadline.
Command tier includes active OCR investigation support. When OCR opens an investigation, they request documentation of your HIPAA Security Rule compliance program: risk analysis, risk management, audit log history, access control policies, workforce training records, and incident response documentation. CoreRecon maintains this documentation continuously — your risk analysis is current, your audit logs are retained for 6 years, and your incident response documentation is generated in real time during security events (not reconstructed afterward). We provide your legal team with the technical documentation package, participate in technical briefings as your security operations representative, and support corrective action plan development by mapping remediation requirements to existing or new CoreRecon controls. We're not a law firm — legal strategy belongs to your counsel. We own the technical security documentation that supports that strategy.
Yes — we integrate with major EHR platforms for security event monitoring. Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), and athenahealth all expose audit log streams and security event APIs that we aggregate into the CoreRecon SIEM. This means user access events, authentication failures, bulk record export attempts, and after-hours access anomalies from your EHR are monitored in the same SIEM as your network and endpoint telemetry — giving OCR a single unified audit trail rather than separate siloed logs. Integration setup is included in onboarding at Fortress and Command tiers. We work with your Epic or Cerner implementation team during the integration phase. If your EHR platform is not on this list, let us know during the assessment — we integrate with most major platforms via standard audit log export or API.
Most healthcare breaches start months before discovery. Our free assessment maps your PHI attack surface, benchmarks you against HIPAA Security Rule requirements, assesses business associate risk, and evaluates your breach notification posture. No credit card. No commitment. Delivered in 14 days.
Request your free $2,500 assessment →Delivered within 14 days • No credit card • SDVOSB-certified team
See a sample report — redacted 12-page PDF, real findings.
Need a SOW for board or CFO approval? Build your Scope of Work PDF →
HIPAA Business Associate agreements missing? Score your vendor risk against HIPAA §164.308(b) →