What you’ll learn in this article:
- Client-side monitoring fills the most prominent blind spot: what third-party scripts do in patients’ browsers.
- Without runtime visibility and controls, standard tools (such as analytics, pixels, chat, and replay) can disclose PHI.
- Add a website layer to your stack, like inventory scripts, and enforce Content Security Policy (CSP)/Subresource Integrity (SRI). Continuously monitor to stay compliant and audit-ready.
Why HIPAA compliance requires 3 layers, not one platform
We see the same pattern across healthcare clients. The servers are locked down, databases encrypted, and GRC documentation is in order.
Then we check the browser layer and find a Google Analytics pixel quietly sending appointment URLs and other PHI to third-party servers without a BAA.
The assumption is understandable: “Our compliance platform says we’re covered.” The reality is that traditional HIPAA tools can’t see what happens in patients’ browsers, where PHI exposures increasingly occur. Compliance has to be layered. Our framework organizes controls into three categories:
- Website and client-side monitoring
- GRC platforms
- Privacy & consent management tools
Each addresses a different slice of your risk surface, from what happens in the browser to how you manage end-user consent. In this guide, we’ll walk through all three, compare key features, highlight what matters most in 2025, and show where gaps often remain.
Your team shouldn’t rely on an all-in-one HIPAA platform; you need dedicated tools for each compliance layer, especially the browser risks traditional solutions miss.
Understanding Categories
In practice, HIPAA compliance spans beyond secure servers and encrypted databases. Much of the risk now lives in the browser, where analytics, pixels, and chat scripts interact directly with patients. The following categories reflect the evolution of compliance responsibilities.
Category 1: Website & Client-Side Monitoring
Website and client-side monitoring tools focus on what happens inside the patient’s browser, a domain most compliance programs overlook. These solutions continuously scan for third-party scripts, tracking technologies, and pixels that may transmit Protected Health Information (PHI) to unauthorized vendors.
They detect data flows from forms, portals, and landing pages, revealing potential PHI leaks. This category directly supports compliance with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance on online tracking technologies (updated June 2024), which clarified that such disclosures are subject to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.
Who needs it? Any healthcare organization operating public websites, patient portals, telehealth apps, or marketing pages that use analytics, pixels, or advertising integrations.
Category 2: GRC & Organizational Compliance
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platforms form the administrative layer of HIPAA programs. They centralize policy documentation, employee training, risk assessments, and audit evidence. This helps organizations stay audit-ready year-round. Some of the best HIPAA compliance tools also streamline vendor management and Business Associate Agreement (BAA) tracking, ensuring third-party partners remain compliant.
In short, GRC software connects people, processes, and proof.
Who needs it: Every covered entity and business associate, from healthcare providers to vendors handling PHI, needs a GRC foundation to coordinate oversight and maintain continuous compliance.
Category 3: Privacy & Consent Management
Privacy and consent management tools handle what happens after data is collected. These solutions manage cookie consent banners, align data practices with state and international privacy laws, and automate Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs).
Who needs it? Organizations that operate across multiple states or countries, serve diverse patient populations, or run marketing programs requiring transparent consent and data control.
Website & Client-Side Monitoring Solutions
This is a newer category born from the HHS OCR guidance on online tracking technologies. It focuses on what happens inside users’ browsers (scripts, pixels, tag manager loads) and stops unauthorized data access, a coverage that traditional GRC suites don’t provide.
1. Feroot HealthData Shield AI
Feroot HealthData Shield AI is purpose-built for healthcare website compliance and PHI protection. The tool helps HIPAA-covered organizations block unauthorized trackers, secure sensitive data, and maintain compliance across authenticated and unauthenticated pages.
Key Features:
- Automated discovery of all tracking technologies across your sites
- AI-powered PHI discovery in web forms, searches, and scheduling flows
- Real-time PHI protection that detects and blocks unauthorized trackers
- Policy enforcement to control script, pixel, and data-flow behavior
- Automated BAA management with vendor status tracking and audit docs
- Easy deployment and centralized management for multiple domains
- Integrations with your existing security stack for streamlined operations
- Support for HIPAA, CCPA, and GDPR compliance reporting
The platform is best for healthcare organizations with websites, patient portals, or telehealth platforms that use marketing or analytics tools and need continuous, client-side monitoring for HIPAA compliance.
Contact for pricing
2. Source Defense
Source Defense is a client-side web security platform that monitors and controls first/third-party JavaScript in the browser. It detects and blocks skimming, formjacking, and keylogging, enforces policy on partner scripts, and offers external scanning or real-time sandbox protection to support multiple security approaches..
It is suitable for client-side web security and e-commerce data protection
3. Cloudflare Page Shield
Cloudflare Page Shield adds client-side JavaScript monitoring to the Cloudflare stack. It inventories third-party scripts, alerts on unexpected changes or new domains, and helps spot skimming/formjacking attempts.
Because it’s built into Cloudflare’s CDN/WAF, rollout is straightforward for existing customers. Best for: teams already on Cloudflare. However, alerting is basic, and achieving HIPAA/PCI evidence typically requires manual policy setup and documentation.
GRC & organizational compliance platforms
These healthcare compliance platforms are the operational backbone of HIPAA programs, including policies, training tracking, risk management, evidence collection, and audit coordination.
4. Drata
Drata centralizes compliance across multiple frameworks with automated controls, 100+ tool integrations, policy templates, and employee training tracking. It streamlines evidence collection and auditor-ready reporting, so security and compliance teams can continuously demonstrate control health. It is best for SaaS companies or organizations running multiple frameworks in parallel.
5. Vanta
Vanta emphasizes quick time-to-value with an intuitive UI and fast setup. It automates security monitoring via integrations, centralizes policy management, streamlines evidence collection, and lets you publish a public-facing Trust Center to demonstrate control health.
Strong fit for startups and mid-market teams standing up their first program or expanding beyond SOC 2 into HIPAA/ISO. It is best for startups and mid-market, new to compliance.
6. Secureframe
Secureframe provides HIPAA-focused policy templates and built-in risk assessment tooling to help teams formalize controls and document compliance. It’s a pragmatic fit for small to mid-size healthcare organizations that need a structured starting point without a heavy lift.
Evidence collection and reporting are streamlined through guided workflows. Overall, it is suitable for small to mid-size healthcare organizations.
7. Compliancy Group
Compliancy Group focuses on HIPAA, with a deep policy library (20+ years), role-based training programs, and hands-on advisory services. The platform couples guided workflows with consultant support to help teams document risk assessments, manage BAAs, and prep for audits.
This is well-suited to organizations that want expert-led implementation rather than purely self-serve software.
Privacy & Consent Management
8. OneTrust
OneTrust is a market leader in privacy operations, including consent management, cookie banners, DSAR intake/automation, data mapping, and assessments. Strong fit for complex, multi-jurisdiction programs that need centralized governance. It is well-suited for large enterprises with multi-region requirements.
9. TrustArc
TrustArc combines privacy consulting with a modular platform for assessments, consent, and DSAR workflows. It is well-suited for organizations seeking a consulting-led approach to stand up or mature privacy programs.
10. Usercentrics
Usercentrics delivers cookie consent management with granular controls and region-aware banners. It is best for organizations primarily needing consent management on web properties.
Comparison table
| Capability | Feroot (Website Monitoring) | Drata / Vanta (GRC) | Source Defense (Client-Side Security) | OneTrust (Privacy) | Compliancy Group (HIPAA Specialist) |
| Website PHI detection | Yes (automated) | No | No | No | Manual review |
| Tracker monitoring | Yes | No | Yes | Limited (cookie/consent scanning) | No |
| Real-time blocking | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Policy management | Basic reporting | Yes (templates/workflows) | No | Limited (privacy policies/consent) | Yes (HIPAA policies) |
| Training | No | Yes | No | Not core | Yes |
| Risk assessments | Web/client-side focused | Yes (organizational risk) | No | Privacy assessments (DPIA/PIA), not HIPAA SRA | Yes (HIPAA risk analysis) |
| BAA management | Yes (status tracking/automation) | Document tracking (manual input) | No | Not HIPAA-specific contract tracking | Yes (templates & monitoring) |
No single tool covers everything. Pair website/client-side monitoring with GRC, security controls, and privacy management to close program-level gaps.
How to choose
If your websites or patient portals run analytics, pixels, chat, or tag-manager code, the browser layer is where you’ll want additional visibility.
Here’s a simple way to assess what’s actually running on your pages: Use the Feroot PageScanner extension (free) to see which tracking technologies and scripts are accessing sensitive data and PII on your site. It takes about 30 seconds and shows you exactly what’s loading in real-time.
In our experience, most compliance teams can identify 5 or 6 scripts running on their patient portals. PageScanner typically reveals 15 to 40 scripts actually loading. Understanding that gap helps you determine whether you need additional monitoring.
Assess your needs
If tracking tools are present in patient journeys, add a website/client-side monitoring solution. It’s the only layer that sees third-party scripts and real-time data flows in the browser.
If you need policies, training, risk assessments, vendor oversight, and audit evidence, you need a GRC platform (or Compliancy Group if you prefer guided HIPAA help).
If you operate across multiple states or countries, use a privacy platform for consent management and DSAR workflows.
Why this order?
Close the live leak first (client-side); then prove governance (GRC); then align consent/DSAR (privacy). That sequencing reduces enforcement risk the fastest and provides your audits with clear evidence.
Recent compliance trends
Since late 2022, HHS OCR has repeatedly warned that online tracking technologies on covered-entity sites and apps can trigger HIPAA obligations, and has updated and re-emphasized that guidance on June 26, 2024. OCR notes tracking vendors may be business associates and BAAs, or authorizations are required when PHI is disclosed.
Concrete enforcement signals followed. In October 2024, Blue Shield of California disclosed it had been notified of an OCR investigation into its use of website tracking technologies. A federal judge in Alabama has granted final approval to a $2.8 billion class-action settlement.
Courts have also treated pixel/analytics flows as regulated data. Novant Health’s consolidated “Meta Pixel” class action received final approval in June 2024, reflecting legal exposure when pixels ran on patient-facing properties.
Earlier, Advocate Aurora Health agreed to a ~$12.25 million class settlement (preliminarily approved August 2023) after reporting tracking-technology disclosures affecting millions. While not an OCR fine, it underscores financial and operational fallout tied to client-side tracking.
Feroot’s client-side visibility is the missing layer in your HIPAA stack
There isn’t a single “best” HIPAA compliance tool; there’s the right combination for your environment. Each category solves a different problem: GRC platforms document and govern your program, privacy tools manage consent and multi-jurisdictional obligations, and website/client-side monitoring provides runtime visibility that traditional stacks miss.
- If your sites use third-party analytics, pixels, chat, or tag managers, evaluate a website/client-side monitoring solution
- If policies, training, risk, and evidence are manual, add a GRC platform
- If you operate across states or internationally, layer in a privacy platform
The most common gap we see is strong organizational compliance with limited visibility into browser-side risks, an area regulators now scrutinize.
Your next steps should be to assess which categories you already cover, identify gaps, and shortlist vendors accordingly. For website and client-side risk, consider Feroot HealthData Shield AI to automatically discover trackers, map PHI exposure, enforce protection policies, and produce audit-ready evidence.
Schedule a 20-minute walkthrough of Feroot HealthData Shield AI.
