Breach filing
ArchivedPeachtree Orthopaedic Clinic: 531,000 individuals, Nov 2016.
Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 18 November 2016. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Georgia and lists 531,000 individuals affected, which makes it the 10th largest of the 226 Georgia filings on the register and the 7th largest of the 328 filings submitted nationally in 2016. Among the 8 Georgia filings made in 2016 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
531,000
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$85.0M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in GA
10th
of 226 Georgia filings
Rank in 2016
7th
of 328 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
- 531,000
- Breach submission date
- 18 November 2016
- Submission year
- 2016
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Georgia (GA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Georgia by size
- 10th of 226
- Rank in 2016 nationally
- 7th of 328
- Georgia median filing
- 5,232 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- GA-20161118-peachtree-orthopaedic-clinic
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Georgia and in 2016
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in a network server. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 143 of the 226 Georgia filings (63%) and on 35% of all filings submitted in 2016. Network Server appears on 46% of Georgia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Georgia filings do involve one. At 531,000 individuals the breach is 101 times the Georgia median filing of 5,232 and 133 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It is one of 801 filings of 100,000 or more individuals.
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 531,000 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 $85.0M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $102M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic. Because the filing is above the roughly 100,000-record range in which the per-record figure is reliable, the result is an upper bound, not an estimate: fixed costs are spread across far more records at this scale.
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.
Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic, the covered entity, discovered that there had been an unauthorized intrusion into its computer system. It determined that the intruder may have been able to access the protected health information (PHI) of approximately 531,000 patients. The PHI included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security Numbers, and some clinical information.
The covered entity retained a third party IT security firm to perform a forensic evaluation. It ended its relationship with the business associate that it concluded was the source of the compromise to its database. The covered entity also implemented several additional technical safeguards, including: a new intrusion detection system, improved its firewall, reset all of its user passwords, upgraded its anti-virus software, including additional monitoring of user activity, and implemented multi-factor authentication for remote users.
As a result of OCR's investigation, Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic also completed a new risk analysis.
It provided breach notification to HHS, the affected individuals, the media, and on its website. OCR obtained assurances that the covered entity implemented the corrective actions outlined above.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
531,000 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$85.0M
531,000 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$102M
531,000 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Peachtree Orthopaedic Clinic 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 2016, topped up from other years where 2016 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ApolloMD Business Services, LLC | Business Associate | 626,540 | 10 Feb 2026 | |||
| Georgia Department of Community Health | Health Plan | 557,779 | 2 Mar 2015 | |||
| AU Medical Center, INC | Healthcare Provider | 472,413 | 16 Aug 2018 | |||
| Athens Orthopedic Clinic, P.A. | Healthcare Provider | 201,000 | 29 Jul 2016 | |||
| Vascular Surgical Associates | Healthcare Provider | 36,496 | 10 Nov 2016 |
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 5405.
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.