Wolferdawg IT Consulting favicon
Free tool from Wolferdawg IT Consulting · No signup required

Free HIPAA risk assessment tool for your practice

Most clinics run on email, cloud apps, and a handful of computers, and have no real sense of how exposed their patient data is. Answer 16 plain-language questions and this free HIPAA risk assessment from Wolferdawg IT Consulting gives you a readiness score, a letter grade, and a HIPAA compliance checklist of the gaps to fix first. No login, no sales call required.

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that sets rules for keeping patient health information private and secure. If your practice creates, stores, or sends any patient data, HIPAA applies to you.

The law covers healthcare providers, clinics, dental offices, and the vendors that handle data on their behalf, known as business associates. The HIPAA Security Rule is the part most small practices struggle with, because it requires specific safeguards for the computers, email, and cloud apps that touch patient records.

When those safeguards fall short and patient data is exposed, the result is a reportable breach. Penalties scale with how reasonable your protections were at the time, which is why knowing where you stand matters before something goes wrong. This assessment gives you that starting picture.

What the 2026 update would change

Some of the controls below are best practice today and are not strictly required under the current rule. That is set to change. Federal regulators have proposed the first major overhaul of the HIPAA Security Rule in over twenty years, which would take safeguards like multi factor authentication and encryption out of the optional category and make them required. The proposal is not final law yet, so this tool scores you against the rule in force today. The takeaway is the same either way. The gaps worth closing now are the ones the update would require anyway.

This assessment maps to the HIPAA Security Rule and the practical controls that auditors, cyber insurers, and patients now expect. The questions are written for practice owners and office managers, not for IT staff. If you do not know an answer, pick the not sure option. Not knowing is itself a finding worth surfacing, and the tool counts it as a gap.

Administrative safeguards

The policies, people, and paperwork behind your security.

Technical safeguards

How your systems control access and protect data.

Physical and data safeguards

Protecting the devices and copies that hold patient data.

Please answer every question before continuing. Use the not sure option if you are unsure.

A
100% ready

Your HIPAA compliance checklist

Email this checklist

Send your score and compliance checklist to yourself or a colleague. A copy goes to Wolferdawg IT Consulting so we can help if you want a hand walking through it.

Sent. Check your inbox in a minute.

We send the results to the address above and copy [email protected]. We do not add you to any mailing list.

Want a documented risk analysis instead of a self check?

Wolferdawg IT Consulting builds HIPAA-grade email encryption, device protection, and breach readiness for clinics across Southwest Oklahoma. Book a 30 minute call and we will walk your checklist together.

Book a 30 minute call

Or call (580) 956-8424 or email [email protected].

This tool is an educational self assessment, not a HIPAA compliance certification, a formal security risk analysis, or legal advice. A passing score does not make a practice compliant, and the questions cover common controls rather than every requirement in the HIPAA Security, Privacy, and Breach Notification Rules. For a documented risk analysis or legal guidance, work with a qualified IT provider and your attorney.

Common questions about HIPAA risk assessments

Plain answers about what a HIPAA risk assessment is, what this tool does, and what it does not do.

A HIPAA security risk assessment, which the law calls a risk analysis, is a written review of where your practice creates, stores, or sends patient data and what could go wrong with it. It is required for every covered entity under the HIPAA Security Rule, and it is usually the first document an investigator asks for after a complaint or breach. This tool is a quick way to spot the gaps, but it does not replace the documented analysis itself.

You confirm it through a documented risk analysis, written policies, signed agreements with vendors, and controls that actually run day to day. There is no badge or one time certificate that makes a practice compliant. This assessment gives you an honest snapshot of where you stand and a checklist of what to address, so you walk into a formal review knowing roughly how you measure up.

No. Compliance comes from documented policies, a real risk analysis, signed agreements with vendors, and safeguards that run every day. This tool gives you a starting list and a sense of your exposure, not a certification.

This self assessment is a fast, private snapshot you run yourself in a few minutes. A formal HIPAA audit is a documented examination, usually performed by an outside party, that gathers evidence, reviews your policies, and produces findings you can act on. Think of this tool as the warm up that shows you where to focus before you invest in the real thing.

Yes. The questions apply whether you run a single provider office or a multi location clinic. Smaller practices often score lower because they assume their size keeps them off the radar, and that assumption is exactly what gets practices fined.

Your score and checklist are calculated in your own browser, and nothing is sent anywhere unless you choose to email the results. If you do email them, the address you enter and your results go to our mail service and a copy reaches Wolferdawg IT Consulting. We do not add you to any mailing list, and refreshing the page clears everything.

The checklist sorts your results so the highest risk items rise to the top. In most clinics the urgent ones are the same: multi factor authentication on every login, encryption on devices and outbound email, tested backups, and a current risk analysis. Those four protect against the breaches that actually happen.

They do. Most enforcement starts with a breach report or a patient complaint, not a random audit, and a lost laptop or a ransomware event is enough to trigger one. Penalties scale with how reasonable your safeguards were at the time, which is why having a documented analysis and basic controls matters even for a small office.