Behavioral Health Software Security Questionnaire: 75 Buyer Questions
Use this behavioral health software security questionnaire to assess governance, data flows, HIPAA, Part 2, access, AI, incidents, resilience, vendors, and exit readiness.
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Direct answer
Behavioral health software security questionnaire: what operators need to know
Use this behavioral health software security questionnaire to assess governance, data flows, HIPAA, Part 2, access, AI, incidents, resilience, vendors, and exit readiness. Begin with data flow, purpose, and responsibility before control acronyms. Request evidence and scope for every material answer.
A behavioral health software security questionnaire should reveal how the actual service handles inquiry, clinical-adjacent, insurance, recording, transcript, scheduling, authorization, and user data. The 75 questions below are organized into evidence domains so a buyer can distinguish written claims from implemented controls, shared responsibilities, exclusions, and unresolved risk.
Tailor depth to the workflow and validate high-impact answers with documents, demonstrations, samples, tests, contracts, and references. A completed spreadsheet, BAA, or SOC report is one input, not a substitute for the buyer's risk analysis and configured-service review.
Key takeaways
The short version
- Begin with data flow, purpose, and responsibility before control acronyms.
- Request evidence and scope for every material answer.
- Include AI data use, human oversight, evaluation, change, and suspension.
- Test incidents, outages, restoration, access, export, and deletion.
- Convert gaps into conditions, owners, deadlines, and pilot restrictions.
1. Behavioral health software security questionnaire governance
Ask for dates, owners, scope, methodology, material findings, remediation status, and evidence. “Annual testing” is incomplete if the tested environment excludes the feature, integration, or subprocessor that will handle the customer's information.
- 1–5. Who owns security, privacy, compliance, AI governance, and customer escalation?
- 6–10. Which legal entities, products, environments, locations, certifications, reports, and exclusions are in scope?
- 11–15. When were risk analysis, penetration testing, policy review, workforce training, and incident exercises last completed?
- 16–20. How are vulnerabilities, exceptions, corrective actions, material changes, complaints, and customer commitments governed?
2. Data flow, HIPAA, Part 2, and vendor questions
- 21. What data is collected, inferred, generated, received, maintained, transmitted, displayed, logged, exported, or deleted?
- 22. Which purposes and user roles apply to each element?
- 23. Where does data travel during phone, web, text, email, VOB, scheduling, support, analytics, backup, and AI processing?
- 24. Which party is covered entity, business associate, subcontractor, QSO, Part 2 program, recipient, or another role?
- 25. Which BAAs, security terms, and Part 2 agreements or controls apply?
- 26–30. Which subprocessors handle which data, where, for what purpose, under what agreement, and with what change notice?
- 31–35. How do minimum necessary, consent, revocation, restrictions, access, amendment, accounting, legal demands, and retention work?
3. Identity, application, infrastructure, and resilience questions
| Questions | Domain | Evidence examples |
|---|---|---|
| 36–40 | Identity and access | SSO/MFA, roles, privileged access, joiner-mover-leaver, access review |
| 41–45 | Application security | SDLC, review, testing, dependency, secrets, vulnerability remediation |
| 46–50 | Data protection | Encryption, key management, tenant isolation, logging, export, deletion |
| 51–55 | Infrastructure | Configuration, network, endpoint, patching, monitoring, environment separation |
| 56–60 | Continuity | Availability, backup, restore tests, RTO/RPO, telecom failure, manual operations |
| 61–65 | Incident response | Detection, triage, evidence, notification, exercises, customer coordination |
4. AI and automation questions
NIST's AI RMF recommends clearly defined human-AI roles and risk management across the lifecycle. The evidence should describe the complete workflow, not only model accuracy in a benchmark disconnected from actual calls, sources, and downstream actions.
- 66. Which models, rules, prompts, knowledge sources, tools, and external services support each feature?
- 67. Is customer data used for training, tuning, evaluation, product improvement, abuse monitoring, or human review?
- 68. How are sources, confidence, missing information, uncertainty, and conflicting evidence represented?
- 69. Which tasks and decisions are prohibited, require approval, or trigger human deferral?
- 70. How are performance, harmful output, subgroup variation, drift, complaints, and downstream outcomes evaluated?
- 71. What is versioned when models, prompts, sources, tools, integrations, and policies change?
- 72. Who can restrict, suspend, roll back, or disable a capability and how quickly?
- 73. How are recordings, transcripts, prompts, outputs, corrections, and reviewer actions retained and audited?
- 74. What happens during model, tool, integration, or human-escalation failure?
- 75. Which independent and customer-specific acceptance tests are available before production?
5. Score evidence and set procurement conditions
- 01
Classify
Mark each answer verified, partially verified, unverified, not applicable with rationale, or blocked.
- 02
Weight
Score consequence, exposure, likelihood, detectability, reversibility, and customer-control dependence.
- 03
Condition
Define compensating control, pilot limitation, owner, due date, acceptance evidence, and stop trigger.
- 04
Contract
Reflect material commitments in the BAA, security addendum, service agreement, SLA, and order form.
- 05
Monitor
Reassess on a schedule and after incidents, subprocessors, features, integrations, locations, data uses, or assurance changes.
Common questions
Answers before you build.
What should a behavioral health vendor security questionnaire cover?+
Cover governance, legal roles, data flow, BAAs, Part 2, subprocessors, identity, application and infrastructure security, resilience, incidents, AI, human review, retention, deletion, contracts, and evidence.
Is a SOC 2 report enough to approve healthcare software?+
No. Review its scope and exceptions, then evaluate HIPAA and Part 2 duties, BAA, actual data flow, configuration, subprocessors, AI features, customer controls, and workflow-specific risk.
How should questionnaire answers be verified?+
Use scoped policies, diagrams, reports, test summaries, demonstrations, logs, contracts, samples, exercises, remediation evidence, and customer references proportional to risk.
How often should a vendor be reassessed?+
Use a risk-based cadence and reassess after material product, data, subprocessor, integration, model, location, incident, ownership, contract, or assurance changes.
Practical closeout
Use this operator checklist.
- Begin with data flow, purpose, and responsibility before control acronyms.
- Request evidence and scope for every material answer.
- Include AI data use, human oversight, evaluation, change, and suspension.
- Test incidents, outages, restoration, access, export, and deletion.
- Convert gaps into conditions, owners, deadlines, and pilot restrictions.
Continue through the cluster
Verified customer case studies are added only with customer permission and supporting evidence; none is implied by these operational examples.
Sources & methodology
Trace the operational claims.
Marsa Health Editorial reviewed the primary and research sources below on July 22, 2026. We translate them into workflow controls, distinguish proposals from final rules, and flag where plan, program, state, contract, or clinical requirements vary.
- 01Summary of the HIPAA Security Rule U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesCurrent Security Rule overview covering administrative, physical, and technical safeguards, access controls, risk analysis, and review of ePHI activity.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 02Guidance on Risk Analysis U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesOfficial guidance that risk analysis must cover all ePHI an organization creates, receives, maintains, or transmits.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 03Guidance on HIPAA and Cloud Computing U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesOCR guidance on cloud business associates, subcontractors, BAAs, risk analysis, shared security responsibilities, SLAs, data return, and breach duties.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 04Business Associate Contracts U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesOCR explanation and sample provisions covering permitted uses, safeguards, incidents, individual rights, subcontractors, termination, and return or destruction.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 05Understanding Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records or Part 2 U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesCurrent OCR overview of Part 2 scope, the 2024 final rule, the February 16, 2026 compliance date, enforcement, breach reporting, and model notices.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 06AI Risk Management Framework Core National Institute of Standards and TechnologyVoluntary framework for governing, mapping, measuring, and managing AI risks, including defined roles for human-AI oversight.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 07Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework: Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile National Institute of Standards and TechnologyNIST companion profile for generative AI risks, governance, pre-deployment testing, content provenance, incident disclosure, and human review.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
- 08SOC 2 Reporting on an Examination of Controls at a Service Organization AICPA & CIMAAICPA overview of SOC 2 examinations and why customers request information about the design, operation, and effectiveness of service-organization controls.Accessed or rechecked July 22, 2026
Organizational author. Editorial review covers source accuracy, search intent, workflow boundaries, and human-oversight requirements. This material is educational and does not provide clinical, legal, coding, or coverage advice.
No named clinical or legal expert reviewer is attributed to this version. Marsa Health does not invent reviewer credentials.
Read our editorial methodRevision history
What changed and when
July 22, 2026
Initial publication, source review, and operational editing.