HIPAA posture - Praktend

02 · BAA

Signed before any PHI moves.

Praktend signs a Business Associate Agreement at engagement start, before any PHI touches the platform. The full BAA text is published at a stable public URL you can share directly with your malpractice carrier, counsel, or HIPAA auditor. An executed copy is available on request within one business day.

BAA

Business Associate Agreement - public URL

Breach notification in 30 days (shorter than the 60-day HIPAA outer limit).
AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or higher in transit for PHI Praktend handles.
PHI stored and processed in the United States, including AI inference (the Vertex AI region is pinned to a US region).
Explicit prohibition on using PHI to train, fine-tune, or improve any general-purpose or shared AI model, binding on Praktend and on its subcontractors.
A commitment to maintain a current list of PHI-processing subcontractors and to give you that list on request. We also publish it, with each subprocessor's real BAA status, on our trust page, and it shows that some PHI-capable subprocessors do not yet have an executed BAA.
On termination, PHI is returned or destroyed, with written certification on request. Where destruction is not feasible, Praktend says so in writing and keeps protecting what it retains.

View full BAA text →

Executed copy on request: legal@praktend.care

03 · What we do

What Praktend does.

We sign a BAA with every customer before any PHI flows. (View the BAA template.)
PHI at rest is encrypted with Google-managed AES-256 across Firestore, Cloud Storage, and BigQuery. Designated sensitive fields (SSN, DOB, bank and tax identifiers, portal credentials) are additionally encrypted at the application layer on write, using AES-256-GCM with a Cloud KMS envelope. The backfill of older records into that layer is not finished. In transit the floor is TLS 1.2, with TLS 1.3 supported.
Access to PHI is role-gated per company and per member. PHI access logging runs for companies in HIPAA mode, writing to Firestore and mirroring to a locked, append-only, six-year-retention bucket where that mirror is configured. A logging failure is deliberately non-fatal, so a read is never interrupted by it. Treat the log as best-effort coverage, not a guaranteed row on every single read and write.
We do not use PHI to train, fine-tune, or improve AI models, and the BAA prohibits it for us and for our subcontractors. PHI-eligible inference runs on Google Vertex AI in a US region under the Google Cloud BAA.
We publish our subprocessor BAA status rather than assert it. Google Cloud is executed (June 4, 2026), and that same Google Cloud BAA is what covers Anthropic Claude and Gemini served through Vertex AI, confirmed to us in writing by Google on June 4, 2026. It is coverage under the Google BAA, not a separate Anthropic instrument. Retell (voice) is executed July 10, 2026 and Stedi (eligibility clearinghouse) July 23, 2026.
Where a subprocessor is not signed, we say so. Anthropic's direct API has no BAA and is blocked on PHI paths. OpenAI has no BAA with Praktend and is currently the model provider configured behind the Retell voice agent, and Retell's flow-down to it is not yet confirmed. Mailgun (our primary outbound email), SendGrid, and Twilio are PHI-capable and not yet signed. The live list is published on our trust page, and the BAA obliges us to hand you the current list on request.
For systems your practice owns (your practice management system, your call tracking, your phone system), you hold the account and the vendor BAA. Where a connection is built to run through your own NexHealth account, that account and its BAA are yours as well. Praktend connects with credentials you supply, signs nothing with those vendors, and covers its own handling of the resulting PHI under our BAA with you.
Opt-out requests are recorded on a per-practice do-not-contact list, and the outbound voice path checks that list before dialing. The FCC rule effective April 11, 2025 requires honoring a revocation within 10 business days. That is our commitment; it is not an independently audited control today.

04 · What we don't do yet

Honest about what isn't shipped.

In progress

What we don't do yet

We hold no SOC 2 report. A Type II observation window is running with a Q4 2026 target. We also hold no HITRUST certification, no ISO 27001, and no completed third-party penetration test of Praktend's own product. We do not say "HIPAA certified," because HIPAA does not certify anyone.
Not every PHI-capable subprocessor has a signed BAA. Mailgun, SendGrid, and Twilio are unsigned today, and OpenAI sits behind the Retell voice agent as its configured model provider with no BAA of its own and no confirmed flow-down from Retell. Our trust page carries the current status, and the BAA obliges us to provide that list on request.
We do not offer customer-managed encryption keys. Customer-managed keys (CMEK) for Cloud Storage and transcription are written in Terraform but not yet deployed, Firestore CMEK is off by design, and the BigQuery PHI datasets have no CMEK at all. Because of that we treat our PHI as unsecured PHI for breach-analysis purposes rather than claim an encryption safe harbor.
PHI redaction on the read path is viewer-gated, not universal. Authorized members inside your practice see real patient identity, which is the point of the product. The redaction layer governs what leaves the trust boundary, such as logs, notifications, and error output.
The daily backup job has been a documented no-op since July 13, 2026, so do not count Praktend as your backup today. Your PMS remains the system of record.
Canceling does not hard-delete your data. Our automated purge is soft only: it revokes access and marks the account purged, and deletes nothing. Actual destruction is a human, legally-reviewed process run on request under the BAA's return-or-destroy clause.
We don't replace your practice management system. Open Dental is the one PMS connection live today. Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Eaglesoft, Curve Dental, Denticon, and PracticeWorks are in build through your own NexHealth account and are not yet validated against a live practice. Current status per platform is on the integrations page.
We don't store credit card data; payments are token-based via partner processors. No PCI-DSS scope on Praktend infrastructure today.

05 · Engineering controls

Engineering controls. Not promises.

Encryption

AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2 or higher in transit.

PHI lives on Google Cloud (Firestore, Cloud Storage, BigQuery) with Google-managed AES-256 at rest, which is always on
Designated sensitive fields get an extra application-layer AES-256-GCM envelope with a Cloud KMS key, bound to the tenant and field so ciphertext cannot be moved between them
Customer-managed keys are not offered. CMEK for Cloud Storage and transcription is written in Terraform but not yet deployed; Firestore CMEK is off by design; BigQuery PHI datasets have none
API and webhook traffic terminates at TLS 1.2 or higher with forward-secret cipher suites. TLS 1.3 is supported, 1.2 is the floor
The KMS key behind PHI field encryption is on a roughly 90-day rotation cadence

Access

Least-privilege, logged.

Per-practice OAuth grants, one service at a time, scoped to the minimum required per integration (no domain-wide delegation)
PHI access logging runs for companies in HIPAA mode, recording who read what, when, and how many records, never the values themselves
Those entries write to Firestore and mirror to a locked, append-only GCS bucket with a six-year retention lock where the mirror is configured. The write path holds create-only rights, so it can append but not delete or overwrite
A logging failure does not block the read, by design, so the log is best-effort coverage rather than a guaranteed row on every read and write
Platform secret rotation cadence is not formalized per secret class yet. The PHI KMS key rotates on roughly a 90-day cadence

Posture

Documented posture, not box-checking.

A written HIPAA policy set and a security risk assessment exist and are reviewed at least annually and on significant change
The current risk assessment is a draft baseline dated July 9, 2026. The first full annual evaluation cycle has not run yet, so there is no evaluation attestation to hand you today
We track the January 6, 2025 HIPAA Security Rule NPRM. It is a proposed rule, not final, and we make no conformance claim against it
No SOC 2 report today. A Type II observation window is running, with a Q4 2026 target

06 · The honest part

What Praktend cannot give you today.

Be honest

What Praktend cannot give you today

Praktend is a small operator with an AI team - not a Fortune-500 vendor with a thousand-page SOC 2 dossier. The posture is documented and real; the scale is small.
The audit posture is documented, not attested. There is no SOC 2 report, no HITRUST, and no ISO 27001. A SOC 2 Type II observation window is running with a Q4 2026 target.
If your malpractice carrier requires a SOC 2 Type II report before they will write coverage, that is the one thing Praktend cannot hand you today.
No third-party penetration test or security review of Praktend's own product has been completed. The internal risk assessment is reviewed at least annually, and the first full evaluation cycle has not run yet.
Several subprocessor BAAs are still outstanding, and one PHI-reachable path (the voice agent's model provider) is unsigned. We list them by name rather than round the story off. Read the current list on our trust page, or ask us for it before you sign.

HIPAA, with receipts.