Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) is no longer a niche function reserved for compliance or security teams. It's a business-critical discipline. Yet in many organizations, the path to effective TPRM is riddled with obstacles, and one of the most persistent is internal stakeholder misalignment. When too many stakeholders with competing priorities are involved, the result is often gridlock, delay, or, worse, an outright failure in risk management. 

At the heart of the issue is the reality that each stakeholder group has valid concerns, but these concerns are rarely aligned. Business owners are under pressure to move quickly, onboard new vendors, generate revenue, and meet time-sensitive operational goals. The CISO, meanwhile, is rightly focused on minimizing risk exposure and ensuring compliance with security protocols. Procurement wants to follow a structured sourcing process that ensures consistency and due diligence. Finance leaders, such as the CFO, may prioritize cost control and efficiency. Legal, privacy, compliance, and other departments bring their own lenses as well. 

This complexity can put TPRM in a difficult position. It becomes the bottleneck, caught between urgency and caution, cost and control. Too often, it is deprioritized — not because it lacks importance, but because it lacks consensus. 

When everyone owns a piece of the process but no one owns the outcome, risk management suffers. Decision-making slows to a crawl. Third parties are onboarded without proper due diligence, or the opposite occurs — critical partnerships are delayed or dropped entirely due to unresolved internal friction. The organization ends up either accepting too much risk or losing opportunities. 

To fix this, organizations need to shift from competing priorities to collaborative ownership. Effective TPRM depends on clear communication, shared goals, and defined roles. Rather than treating risk as a blocker, it must be framed as a shared responsibility and enabler of smart business. 

Here are four strategies that help.  

• Establish a Governance Framework – Create a steering committee or working group with representation from all key stakeholders. This formalizes stakeholder collaboration, creates space for discussion, and provides a mechanism for resolving disputes. 
• Define and Communicate the Value of TPRM – TPRM should be positioned not just as a gatekeeper, but as a partner that helps the business grow safely. Highlight how good risk management accelerates decision-making and protects long-term value. 
• Standardize and Streamline the Process – Build workflows that integrate the priorities of security, procurement, legal, and the business into a cohesive onboarding journey. Use technology to automate the routine and elevate the strategic plan. 
• Utilize HITRUST – HITRUST can be positioned as a unifying standard that helps break through stakeholder gridlock by offering pre-vetted assurances and trusted, consistent assessments that speak to everyone's concerns — security, compliance, procurement, and even financial prudence. 

When internal politics and misalignment are the biggest risks to your TPRM program, it's time to treat stakeholder collaboration as a risk domain of its own. By building bridges instead of silos, organizations can turn a fractured process into a competitive advantage where security, speed, and strategy coexist. 

Overview of HITRUST and HIPAA

HITRUST and HIPAA often dominate the conversation when it comes to safeguarding sensitive healthcare data. HITRUST offers a comprehensive framework and an assurance program to help organizations manage risks and strengthen their security postures. HIPAA is a federal law aimed at protecting sensitive patient information.

Understanding the differences between HIPAA and HITRUST is crucial for healthcare organizations seeking to ensure data security, compliance, and trust. This blog explores HITRUST vs. HIPAA and explains how they work together to strengthen an organization's data protection strategy.

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is a United States federal law enacted in 1996 to protect the privacy and security of patient information. It establishes standards for the secure handling of protected health information (PHI) and applies to a wide range of healthcare entities, including healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses.

Key components of HIPAA

• Privacy rule: Governs the use and disclosure of PHI, ensuring that patients' personal data is handled with confidentiality.
• Security rule: Sets national standards for protecting electronic protected health information (ePHI), focusing on administrative, physical, and technical safeguards.
• Breach notification rule: Mandates organizations to notify affected individuals, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and, in certain cases, the media in the event of a data breach.

What is HITRUST?

HITRUST is an information protection standards organization and certifying body. It was initially conceived to help healthcare organizations comply with HIPAA through its framework-based approach. HITRUST now offers a suite of assessments and certifications based on its threat-adaptive, industry-agnostic framework to help organizations across various industries, including healthcare, manage regulatory compliance and mitigate risk. Unlike HIPAA, which is a regulatory requirement, HITRUST is a voluntary certification that integrates multiple security standards into a unified, scalable approach.

Key components of HITRUST

• HITRUST CSF: The HITRUST framework integrates over 60 standards, including HIPAA, NIST, and ISO. It is frequently updated based on threat intelligence data to keep evolving with emerging threats.
• HITRUST Assurance Program: HITRUST offers a structured, scalable approach to evaluate and certify security postures through validated assessments. There are different assessment types for organizations of different sizes, needs, and risk profiles.

Who can benefit from HITRUST?

When exploring HITRUST vs. HIPAA, it’s safe to say that HIPAA applies to healthcare and related organizations, while HITRUST is beneficial for organizations across various sectors, including healthcare, financial services, technology, and more. Organizations that require HIPAA and HITRUST compliance benefit from HITRUST’s ability to unify multiple regulatory standards. HITRUST is also valuable for organizations looking to improve security measures, mitigate risk effectively, and demonstrate robust security practices through a reliable and trusted certification.

Differences between HIPAA and HITRUST

HITRUST and HIPAA differ in their authority, structure, and applicability. Let’s compare HITRUST vs. HIPAA and understand the key differences between the two.

1. Regulatory vs. framework

• HIPAA is a mandatory federal regulation in the United States, specifically for healthcare entities focused on PHI and ePHI.

• HITRUST provides a voluntary, comprehensive security framework that offers certifications and applies to any organization seeking enhanced data protection and regulatory compliance.

2. Requirement vs. assessments

• HIPAA sets the requirements that organizations must comply with. 

• HITRUST provides prescriptive controls to create a roadmap and offers scalable assessments that enable organizations to evaluate their preparedness and manage security and compliance needs.

How HIPAA and HITRUST work together

There may be a few differences between HIPAA and HITRUST, but they complement each other. HIPAA establishes the foundational requirements for protecting healthcare data. HITRUST builds on it and other authoritative sources to help organizations manage risk and compliance. Organizations can use HITRUST’s scalable approach to enhance their security postures and ensure HIPAA and HITRUST compliance.

Leveraging HITRUST Insights Reports

HITRUST offers Insights Reports that help organizations bridge the gap between HITRUST certification vs. HIPAA compliance. These reports provide a clear translation of HITRUST control requirements into the language of other frameworks, ensuring transparency and alignment.

• Custom mapping: HIPAA Insights Reports map HITRUST controls directly to HIPAA requirements, providing clear evidence of compliance.
• Transparency: Organizations gain a detailed view of which parts of HIPAA are addressed by HITRUST, reducing ambiguity.
• Enhanced stakeholder confidence: Results are validated by an independent third party and certified by HITRUST to ensure credibility and trust for effective stakeholder communication.

HITRUST vs. HIPAA: Outlook on healthcare compliance

HIPAA and HITRUST serve different but complementary purposes in the world of healthcare data protection. While HIPAA establishes the baseline for data security, HITRUST provides a robust, scalable approach that organizations can use to enhance their compliance and risk management strategies.

Ultimately, the decision should not be about HITRUST vs. HIPAA or choosing one over the other. Instead, organizations should work together with HITRUST and HIPAA for complementary benefits. By understanding and leveraging the strengths of both, organizations can achieve greater transparency, security, and trust.

One of the most persistent challenges in healthcare third-party risk management (TPRM) is the lack of consensus on certifications and assurance models. Healthcare leaders often disagree on what constitutes sufficient evidence for vendors to demonstrate compliance with security expectations. This inconsistency not only creates confusion but also leads to inefficiencies and increased costs across the board. 

The certification conundrum 

In theory, certifications and assurance models provide a standardized way for healthcare vendors to prove they meet security and compliance requirements. However, the reality is far from that. Some healthcare entities strongly promote and even mandate HITRUST certifications as a gold standard for vendor security. These organizations value HITRUST’s comprehensive approach to evaluating compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, NIST, and others. 

Conversely, other organizations may accept SOC 2 attestations or alternative industry certifications and assurance models as sufficient. SOC 2 reports focus primarily on data security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy, and they are widely recognized across industries. However, while SOC 2 can offer insights into a vendor's security posture, it does not provide the same level of healthcare-specific assurance as HITRUST. 

The absence of assurance models 

Further complicating the landscape are healthcare entities that do not mandate formal certifications or assurance models. Instead, these organizations often rely on manual, questionnaire-based assessments to evaluate vendors. This method may offer flexibility, but it comes at a significant cost. The manual nature of these assessments introduces inefficiencies, consumes valuable resources, and often lacks the rigor of more structured certification processes. 

The ripple effect on vendors 

The lack of standardization has a direct impact on vendors as well. Vendors that serve multiple healthcare clients often face a patchwork of requirements, forcing them to invest in multiple certifications and assurance processes. This not only increases operational complexity but also leads to higher compliance costs. In some cases, vendors might have to allocate resources toward certifications that are not universally recognized or valued. 

Moving toward a unified approach 

The healthcare sector needs a more standardized approach to certifications and assurance models. By collectively agreeing on a core set of certifications or at least establishing a clear hierarchy of acceptable assurance models, healthcare organizations can streamline TPRM processes. This would not only reduce redundancy but also foster greater transparency and trust between healthcare entities and their vendors. 

Until such a consensus emerges, healthcare leaders must navigate this fragmented landscape with care. Encouraging open dialogue between healthcare entities and vendors, as well as advocating for cross-industry standards, can help reduce confusion and inefficiency. Ultimately, adopting a more consistent approach to certifications and assurance models is crucial for advancing healthcare TPRM and cybersecurity while minimizing the burden on vendors.