Concepts

How scoring works

The risk score is a transparent, weighted roll-up — not a black box. This page shows the exact category weights, how findings reduce each category score, and how the final number maps to a grade.

Category weights

Each scan produces a score for six categories. Those category scores combine into the overall score using fixed weights that reflect where PHI-exposure risk actually concentrates on a healthcare website. These are draft weights, tuned as we gather pilot data.

CategoryWeight
Tracking & Third-Party Exposure30%
Privacy Policy & Disclosures20%
Forms & PHI Exposure20%
Transport Security (TLS/HTTPS)15%
Security Headers10%
Infrastructure Hygiene5%
Total100%

Why tracking is weighted highest

Trackers on patient-facing pages are the pattern behind the 2022–2023 OCR and FTC enforcement activity, so the Tracking & Third-Party Exposure category carries the most weight (30%), followed by privacy disclosures and form handling at 20% each.

From findings to a category score

Each category starts at 100. Every finding in that category subtracts a penalty scaled by its severity, and — for tracking and form findings — by the page type it sits on. A high-severity tracker on an appointment page costs far more than the same tracker on a marketing page. Category scores are floored at 0.

Conceptually, the overall score is the weighted average of the category scores:

text
category_score[c] = max(0, 100 - Σ severity_penalty(finding) * page_type_multiplier(finding))

overall_score = Σ ( category_score[c] * weight[c] )   # weights sum to 1.0

Grade bands

The overall score maps to a letter grade for quick comparison over time:

text
A  90–100
B  80–89
C  70–79
D  60–69
F   0–59

The score is relative, not a verdict

A high score means few publicly observable risk indicators were found — not that a site is “HIPAA compliant.” Compliance depends on safeguards no external scan can see. Treat the score as a prioritization tool, not a certification.