What is PCI Auditing: Facts You Need to Know

Posted by Tonni Islam

The healthcare industry today has several compliance regulations. It’s important to protect payment card information as part of this effort to remain within the law. This article will talk about PCI compliance audits and what the PCI DSS requirements are.

That way you can prepare yourself to pass any audit that comes your way.

PCI DSS Requirements

In a way, there is a PCI audit checklist. If you are processing payment information, you need to meet several requirements, such as:

  • Maintain a secure network
  • Protect the data of cardholders
  • Manage vulnerabilities in your system
  • Implement access control measures
  • Monitor your networks and perform testing
  • And compose a security policy for your information

By doing the above, you can begin to meet the several specific requirements of PCI DSS regulations.

PCI DSS Compliance Audits

It’s important to be able to pass a PCI audit. In some cases, depending on your merchant level, you may be required to pass this before you are able to process payments.

Failing a PCI audit is a worst-case scenario. While it’s not the end of the world, it will force you to spend significant time and resources to get back within compliance. It’s best to have a prevention method instead of the cure.

Fines could range up to $100,000 a month depending on the severity of your infraction. Of course, you also do not want to start being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission.

Therefore, setting your organization up to pass the most harshest PCI audits is the best strategy.

What is the PCI Audit?

A PCI audit involves a detailed inspection of your adherence to PCI DSS requirements.

It is designed to ensure that you are upholding the proper safeguards to protect payment card processing.

When it comes to understanding what PCI auditing is, understand that it looks at several aspects of your operations.

It reviews concepts such as data storage and transmission, paper-based records, payment applications, wireless networks, point of sale systems, card readers and more.

PCI Audit Requirements

A proper audit will follow certain protocols looking at various aspects of your organization such as risk analysis, analyzing how much risk you or your vendors are undertaking with your current systems, and managing risk.

You can improve your chances of passing an audit with:

Documents

Digital documents should be properly organized. If they’re not, there could be potential data risks.

Task Management

Leverage easy-to-use software to manage your compliance tasks. Proper healthcare software can help you with this.

Reporting

Understand your risk percentages and profiles. That way you can take proper actions to rectify any non-compliant factors.

How to Perform an Internal PCI Compliance Audit

Use healthcare compliance software to pass your next audit and mock audit. There’s too much at risk to ignore PCI compliance. But when using software from ComplyAssistant, you can ensure that your organization remains within the rules and regulations of your industry.

You can protect health care data without putting information at risk. So talk to ComplyAssistant today.

Understand how healthcare compliance consultants can bring you up to speed on the most important PCI requirements. That way you can protect yourself, your vendors, and your practice.

PCI Auditing