Why SOC 2 Compliance Matters for Technology-Enabled Healthcare Services

SOC 2 compliance for healthcare technology companies isn’t optional — it’s foundational. At Kaliper Health, we sit at the intersection of clinical data, patient journeys, and provider workflows. The trust our health system partners place in us is not abstract — it lives in the data we touch every day. That’s why we made SOC 2 compliance a priority early in our company’s life, and why we believe every technology-enabled healthcare service should do the same.

What Is SOC 2 & Why Does It Matter?

SOC 2 — Service Organization Controls 2 — is a security and compliance framework governed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). In a SOC 2 audit, an independent third-party auditor reviews an organization’s policies, procedures, and evidence to determine whether its controls are both well-designed and operating effectively.

The result is a SOC 2 report: a formal, third-party attestation that your organization has the security controls in place to protect customer data. It’s not a certification in the traditional sense — it’s something more meaningful. It’s a structured, evidence-backed statement from an independent expert that your security posture is real.

For companies working in healthcare and life sciences, where patient data and provider relationships are at stake, the question around SOC 2 compliance for healthcare technology is never really whether to pursue it — it’s when.

Why We Pursued SOC 2 When We Did

When we stepped back and looked at where Kaliper Health was as a company, the answer was clear: now was exactly the right time.

We were growing our health system partnerships, expanding the data we manage on behalf of patients and providers, and entering enterprise sales cycles where security due diligence is table stakes. We had built a strong technical foundation, but we knew that trust in healthcare isn’t assumed — it has to be earned and demonstrated.

Pursuing SOC 2 at this stage also meant we could build security into our culture and infrastructure from the ground up, rather than retrofitting compliance onto a system that had grown up without it. The earlier you make security a first-class priority, the less costly and disruptive it is. We received our SOC 2 Type I report on February 16, 2025, and we are committed to renewing our certification annually — because security isn’t a milestone, it’s an ongoing practice.

Our Path to Compliance

Compliance Partners

Vanta was our compliance automation platform throughout the process. As the leader in the Trust Management space, Vanta connected directly to our key infrastructure systems and automated the collection of audit evidence — eliminating what would otherwise have been weeks of manual work. Beyond automation, Vanta gave us a clear framework: what controls we needed, where the gaps were, and exactly what it would take to get audit-ready.

Advantage Partners served as our audit firm, and their approach made a real difference. They were engaged, responsive, and genuinely invested in helping us reach the finish line efficiently. After we used Vanta to get audit-ready, Advantage Partners confirmed our readiness, kicked off our Type I audit, evaluated our controls, and issued our report shortly after the audit window closed. The experience was far smoother than we expected.

The Process

We started by connecting Vanta to our core systems — cloud infrastructure, identity and access management, code repositories, and more. This gave us immediate visibility into our security posture and surfaced the controls we needed to implement or strengthen. We worked through policies and procedures with Vanta’s guidance, building out the documented security program that a SOC 2 audit requires.

Once we had a strong foundation in place, we engaged Advantage Partners to confirm our audit readiness and set a start date. We worked backwards from that date to ensure we’d have the required evidence accumulated and our controls operating for the appropriate period. The audit itself was collaborative — Advantage Partners reviewed our controls, asked clarifying questions, and assessed their operating effectiveness. Shortly after the audit window closed, they issued our report.

Timeline

One of the most important things we’d tell other founders and operators: the readiness phase takes the most time, but it doesn’t have to take months. By making compliance a genuine organizational priority — not a side project — we were able to get audit-ready in a matter of weeks. Vanta accelerated this significantly by automating evidence collection and providing a clear roadmap.

Setting a target audit date early and working backwards was one of the most useful things we did. It forced clarity and accountability. And now that our controls are implemented and security is woven into how we operate, future annual audits will be substantially faster.

What We Learned

1.  Focus on your security posture — not checking boxes

It’s tempting to approach SOC 2 as a compliance exercise: find the required controls, implement them, get the report. But that mindset misses the point. Compliance is not one-size-fits-all, and a SOC 2 audit is only as valuable as the genuine security culture it reflects.

Security is a continuous project. Threats evolve, systems change, and the work never ends. The best outcome of a SOC 2 audit isn’t the report — it’s the security discipline it builds into your organization.

2.  Start earlier than you think you need to

Every month you wait is a month your systems grow more complex — and retrofitting security onto a complex system is harder than building it in from the start. Policies are easier to write when you’re establishing workflows, not after they’ve calcified. Secure infrastructure is easier to build than to re-architect.

We’d encourage any technology-enabled service company — especially in healthcare — to get started sooner. The short-term investment pays dividends in reduced risk, lower future audit burden, and the confidence that comes from knowing your house is in order.

3.  SOC 2 can directly help you scale

In enterprise healthcare sales cycles, vendor security reviews are a gating requirement. Before we had our SOC 2 report, these conversations required lengthy back-and-forth and custom questionnaires. With the report in hand, we move faster — prospects have independent, third-party validation that we take healthcare data security seriously.

Beyond sales, SOC 2 compliance for healthcare technology companies reduces risk in a way that protects the business long-term. Mitigating that risk early — and demonstrating to customers that you’ve done so — is one of the highest-leverage investments a growing company can make.

4.  Know your internal stakeholders before you start

SOC 2 touches every part of your organization — HR, legal, leadership, product, engineering, and operations. Before you begin, map out who owns what, and make sure those people are bought in and have the bandwidth to contribute.

Being explicit about stakeholder responsibilities early — rather than discovering them mid-audit — made the process dramatically smoother. Your entire team will be involved in implementing and adhering to security procedures, and everyone benefits when that’s set up clearly from the start.

5.  The right partners make all the difference

SOC 2 is complex, technical, and time-intensive. The right partners don’t just make it easier — they make it possible to do well. A compliance automation platform like Vanta turns months of manual evidence collection into a manageable, automated workflow. An engaged audit firm like Advantage Partners ensures you’re prepared and delivers a report that actually means something.

Don’t cut corners on this. The audit firm you choose will either make you feel supported or leave you scrambling. Take the time to find partners who are genuinely invested in your success.

What’s Next for Kaliper Health

Achieving SOC 2 compliance is a milestone, but it’s one point on a longer journey. We’re committed to renewing our SOC 2 certification annually, continuing to mature our security program, and holding ourselves to the standard our health system partners deserve.

If you’re a health system or healthcare organization evaluating technology partners, we’re happy to share our SOC 2 report. And if you’re a technology company earlier in this journey and want to talk through what the process looked like for us, reach out — we’d be glad to help.