What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 164.308(a)(6)(i) Security Incident Procedures (Standard)?

Incident response plan aligned to NIST SP 800-61r2; IR team roster; Tabletop exercise reports; Incident classification taxonomy.

HIPAA Security Rule · Administrative

`164.308(a)(6)(i)` Security Incident Procedures (Standard)

Implement policies to address security incidents. NIST recommends an incident response plan aligned to NIST SP 800-61 with detection, analysis, containment, eradication, and recovery phases.

Source: HIPAA Security Rule, 164.308(a)(6)(i). The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open HIPAA Security Rule in the compliance library.

Applies to covered entities and business associates. An addressable specification can be met by a documented, reasonable alternative.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Tabletop exercise reports · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Incident response plan aligned to NIST SP 800-61r2 · Policy repository / GRC workspace
IR team roster · Document repository
Incident classification taxonomy · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Plan exists but not exercised
Roles ambiguous during real incident
No criteria for breach determination

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

164.308(a)(5)(ii)(D) Password Management (Addressable) · 164.308(a)(6)(ii) Response and Reporting (Required)