Breach filing
ArchivedEmpath-Stratum Inc. doing business as Empath Health: 40,569 individuals, Apr 2024.
Empath-Stratum Inc. doing business as Empath Health reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 25 April 2024. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Florida and lists 40,569 individuals affected, which makes it the 103rd largest of the 463 Florida filings on the register and the 203rd largest of the 741 filings submitted nationally in 2024. Among the 38 Florida filings made in 2024 it ranks 10th.
Individuals affected
40,569
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$6.49M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in FL
103rd
of 463 Florida filings
Rank in 2024
203rd
of 741 filings nationally
Section F.1 / The filing
As posted by HHS OCR
Every value below is the portal's own field for this filing, plus its rank within the register.
- Covered entity type
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 40,569
- Breach submission date
- 25 April 2024
- Submission year
- 2024
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Florida (FL)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Florida by size
- 103rd of 463
- Rank in 2024 nationally
- 203rd of 741
- Florida median filing
- 4,912 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- FL-20240425-empath-stratum-doing-business-as-empath
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Florida and in 2024
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in email. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 256 of the 463 Florida filings (55%) and on 83% of all filings submitted in 2024. Email appears on 20% of Florida filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 25% of Florida filings do involve one. At 40,569 individuals the breach is 8.3 times the Florida median filing of 4,912 and 10 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It sits in the 10,000 to 99,999 band, which holds 1,938 filings.
As of 28 August 2026 the case is listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive. OCR's closing summary of the case is reproduced in full below.
Florida's breach notification statute (Fla. Stat. 501.171) requires notice to affected residents within 30 days of determining a breach occurred (up to 15-day extension for good cause). Its attorney general threshold: 500 or more Florida residents. The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule ran alongside it: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery, which is the clock that put this filing on the portal.
Multiplying 40,569 individuals by IBM's $160 customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025, the figure the site's calculator uses) gives a modelled $6.49M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $7.79M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Empath-Stratum Inc. doing business as Empath Health. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 1.2 times the sector average.
Section F.3 / OCR closing summary
The portal's archived description, in full
Written by the Office for Civil Rights when the case was closed and reproduced verbatim from the HHS export.
The covered entity (CE), Empath-Stratum Inc. dba Empath Health reported that it multiple employees were the targets of an email phishing scheme that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 40,569 individuals. The PHI involved includes names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, credit card/bank account information, diagnoses/conditions, medications and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In response to the breach, the CE offered free credit monitoring to affected individuals and implemented administrative, technical and security safeguards.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
40,569 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$6.49M
40,569 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$7.79M
40,569 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Empath-Stratum Inc. doing business as Empath Health to HHS, multiplied by IBM's customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025 Figure 6 and the 2026 edition). No cost has been disclosed by the entity for this filing; the figure is a planning estimate, not a fact about the breach. IBM's per-record figures come from mid-volume breaches and IBM cautions against applying them to breaches involving millions of records; the site's per-record page explains where the multiplication holds and where it breaks down.
Context: IBM's average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M in the 2026 report ($7.42M in 2025); the global average across all sectors was $4.44M in 2025.
Cost per record: method and limits / Healthcare breach cost, IBM 2026
Section F.6 / Notification clock
Florida statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Florida: Fla. Stat. 501.171
Florida Information Protection Act (FIPA)
- Notice to individuals
- Within 30 days of determining a breach occurred (up to 15-day extension for good cause)
- Attorney general threshold
- 500 or more Florida residents (Within 30 days of the breach determination)
- Private right of action
- No: FIPA does not permit direct individual lawsuits; AG enforcement only
- Penalty
- Escalating civil penalties up to $500,000 per breach; also an unfair or deceptive trade practice
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule runs alongside the state statute: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery.
Section F.7 / Peer filings
Florida filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Florida filings in 2024, topped up from other years where 2024 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gunster, Yoakley, & Stewart, PA | Business Associate | 42,077 | 8 Mar 2024 | |||
| Monte Nido | Healthcare Provider | 41,662 | 9 Aug 2024 | |||
| Radiology and Imaging Specialists | Healthcare Provider | 37,210 | 17 Jun 2024 | |||
| Bridgeway Center, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 36,353 | 19 Apr 2024 |
Index / Companion schedules
13 HHS breach register
→Hub: every filing, by state, year and entity.
04 Biggest breaches
→Mega-breaches with primary-source cost figures.
Industry / Healthcare
→IBM 2026: $6.64M average, 13 years at #1.
Regulation / HIPAA penalties
→OCR enforcement tiers and the 60-day rule.
11 50-state laws
→Deadline, AG threshold and penalties per state.
Cost / Per record
→Where the per-record model is reliable.
Provenance
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, Breach Portal (breaches affecting 500 or more individuals), retrieved 2026-08-28. Public domain. Individuals affected and dates as reported by the covered entity.
Portal: ocrportal.hhs.gov breach report. Statutory basis: HITECH Act section 13402(e)(4): the Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals are reported to OCR annually and are not posted, so they are not on this register. Status wording follows the portal's two tabs ("Cases Currently Under Investigation" and "Archive") as of 28 August 2026; a filing moves to the archive when OCR closes the case. Modelled costs on this site are a method applied to the reported count, using IBM Cost of a Data Breach per-record figures, and are never a cost disclosed by the entity. This row: hhs-breach-archive__2026-08-28.csv, export row 991.
Corrections: if you represent a listed entity and the portal row has been amended, email [email protected] with the portal entry and we will re-pull the export.