The work · M&A integration

You just acquired a practice. It is already on your network. The HIPAA risk analysis you signed last quarter is now wrong.

Health systems acquire on a steady cycle. Multi-specialty groups roll up. Private-equity-backed MSOs absorb practices monthly. The cycle does not pause for information security. By the time you get to the integration call, the new site is usually already on your network — its switch closet has not been audited since 2019, its asset list is a spreadsheet from a prior consultant, and its radiology workstation is sharing a flat network segment with the front-desk PC. The risk analysis the parent organization just submitted to its auditor is now technically inaccurate, and the responsibility for fixing it lands on the same InfoSec team that did not pause for the acquisition either. We close the gap fast, on the same day if the network access is in place.

In one paragraph Local IT gives CybrIQ read-only access to the acquired practice's network switches — the same kind of read-only access your network monitoring tools already use. Within hours we return a clean inventory of every device on the new site, in the same format your existing sites feed into your risk register. The risk analysis is restored to accurate before the next quarterly reporting cycle, not after the next audit cycle.

Why M&A is harder in healthcare than the deal-team admits.

The asset list, if it exists, is dated.

It was prepared for a prior consultant, a prior audit, or a prior carrier. It does not reflect the imaging vendor's service-engineer visit last month, the contractor laptop that has been plugged into a wall jack since the renovation, or the cabinet in the back office that has been quietly broadcasting on the network since 2016.

The switch closet is opaque.

The local IT contractor who installed the network may no longer be reachable. The documentation may not match the cabling. The VLAN scheme may be improvised. The handful of network devices on the floor may be owned by a vendor whose contract you have not seen.

Clinical operations are live, all the time.

You cannot pause an acquired practice to discover what it has. The imaging room has appointments today. The infusion pumps are in use. Active scanning is off the table — even a basic network discovery scan is risky against medical equipment. Whatever you do to find out what is there has to be passive enough to be invisible to the devices and to the clinical staff using them.

The integration deadline is real.

Network connectivity is usually live within weeks of the deal close. The formal integration milestone lands somewhere between 30 and 90 days. The "accurate inventory" deadline is the same deadline. CybrIQ delivers an inventory within hours of getting read-only access to the acquired practice's switches — same day if the network team and your IT can coordinate the access window.

A pattern that works for repeat acquirers.

For health systems with active M&A pipelines, MSOs absorbing practice groups, and dental and behavioral-health rollups, the pattern is to keep a CybrIQ External Scan Engine (ESE) instance prepositioned in the deal-team field kit. Local IT enables read-only SNMP on the acquired practice's switches; the ESE phones home over your existing tunnel; the inventory appears in your environment within hours. The new site is in the same dashboard, in the same schema, in the same audit feed, as your owned sites.

What we don't do. CybrIQ does not run the M&A risk analysis for you. It does not produce the integration playbook. It does not contract on the carrier-facing side of the renewal. What it does is produce the inventory input you have historically had to rebuild manually for every new site. The rest of the integration work stays with your team and your assessors.

What the integration timeline typically looks like.

Day 1 — deal close, network access granted.

Deal closes. Local IT at the acquired site enables read-only SNMP for the CybrIQ ESE on the practice's core switch infrastructure. The ESE phones home over an existing tunnel. No agents touch any clinical device.

Hours 4 to 24 — first device inventory.

The first sweep of switch-derived identification lands in the dashboard and the syslog feed. The new site appears with its device families enumerated. The InfoSec team has a basis for the segmentation conversation with Clinical Engineering and the practice's local IT.

Week 1 — risk-analysis refresh.

The HIPAA §164.308(a)(1)(ii)(A) risk analysis is updated to include the acquired site. The inventory is now defensible. Your assessor sees the same continuous change feed they see for the rest of the portfolio.

Day 30 to 90 — formal integration milestone.

The acquired site is on the same telemetry posture as your owned sites. Anomalous identity events at the new site surface through the same channels they do everywhere else. The next audit cycle treats the acquired site no differently from the legacy footprint.

A live walk-through and a conversation about your next acquisition.

Bring the close date, the practice profile, and the integration milestone. We work backward from there.

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