Breach filing
ArchivedKaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc.: 10,205 individuals, Nov 2020.
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 6 November 2020. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in Georgia and lists 10,205 individuals affected, which makes it the 94th largest of the 226 Georgia filings on the register and the 250th largest of the 663 filings submitted nationally in 2020. Among the 20 Georgia filings made in 2020 it ranks 5th.
Individuals affected
10,205
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$1.63M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in GA
94th
of 226 Georgia filings
Rank in 2020
250th
of 663 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
- Health Plan
- Individuals affected
- 10,205
- Breach submission date
- 6 November 2020
- Submission year
- 2020
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Georgia (GA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Georgia by size
- 94th of 226
- Rank in 2020 nationally
- 250th of 663
- Georgia median filing
- 5,232 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- GA-20201106-kaiser-foundation-health-plan-of-georgia
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Georgia and in 2020
OCR classifies the incident as unauthorized access or disclosure, with the breached information held in paper records or films. Unauthorized Access/Disclosure is the type recorded on 42 of the 226 Georgia filings (19%) and on 21% of all filings submitted in 2020. Paper/Films appears on 13% of Georgia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Georgia filings do involve one. At 10,205 individuals the breach is 2.0 times the Georgia median filing of 5,232 and 2.6 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.
Georgia's breach notification statute (Ga. Code 10-1-912) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: no general AG requirement (reporting agencies at 10,000+ 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 10,205 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 $1.63M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $1.96M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc.. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.3 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), Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc., reported that a coding error in its electronic health records system caused billing statements and other communications containing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 10,205 individuals to be sent to the wrong recipients. The ePHI involved included names, billing information, and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. Following the breach, the CE implemented additional administrative and technical safeguards to better protect its ePHI. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
10,205 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$1.63M
10,205 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$1.96M
10,205 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Georgia, Inc. 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
Georgia statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Georgia: Ga. Code 10-1-912
Personal Identity Protection Act
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- No general AG requirement (reporting agencies at 10,000+ residents)
- Private right of action
- No: No direct individual lawsuits for notification failures
- Penalty
- No explicit statutory penalties; possible exposure under the Fair Business Practices Act
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
Georgia filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Georgia filings in 2020, topped up from other years where 2020 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia Department of Human Services | Healthcare Clearing House | 45,732 | 9 Oct 2020 | |||
| OneDigital Health and Benefits | Business Associate | 22,894 | 6 Mar 2020 | |||
| Jekyll Island-State Park Authority - Jekyll Island Fire/EMS | Healthcare Provider | 7,046 | 9 Nov 2020 | |||
| Robert S. Smith MD Inc DBA Boston Scientific Pathology | Healthcare Provider | 6,940 | 31 Jan 2020 |
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 3563.
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.