Breach filing
ArchivedPhoebe Putney Memorial Hospital: 12,937 individuals, Jan 2014.
Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 7 January 2014. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Georgia and lists 12,937 individuals affected, which makes it the 85th largest of the 226 Georgia filings on the register and the 61st largest of the 314 filings submitted nationally in 2014. Among the 15 Georgia filings made in 2014 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
12,937
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.07M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in GA
85th
of 226 Georgia filings
Rank in 2014
61st
of 314 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
- 12,937
- Breach submission date
- 7 January 2014
- Submission year
- 2014
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Electronic Medical Record, Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Georgia (GA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Georgia by size
- 85th of 226
- Rank in 2014 nationally
- 61st of 314
- Georgia median filing
- 5,232 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- GA-20140107-phoebe-putney-memorial-hospital
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Georgia and in 2014
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in an electronic medical record system and paper records or films. Theft is the type recorded on 28 of the 226 Georgia filings (12%) and on 41% of all filings submitted in 2014. Electronic Medical Record appears on 4% of Georgia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Georgia filings do involve one. At 12,937 individuals the breach is 2.5 times the Georgia median filing of 5,232 and 3.2 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 12,937 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 $2.07M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.48M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.4 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.
On April 9, 2012, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Inc., the covered entity (CE), learned from law enforcement that an employee of Phoebe Home Care (PHC), a department of the CE, improperly accessed patients' protected health information (PHI) with the intent to process fraudulent tax returns. An internal investigation and audit concluded that the employee accessed the medical records in a combination of paper and electronic form. The PHI affected 2,354 individuals and contained patients' names, dates of birth and social security numbers. In response to the breach, the CE sanctioned the responsible employee. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media and also posted substitute notice on its website. The CE improved safeguards by locking cabinets containing patient files, creating a security access hierarchy to assure role-based access to PHI, and encrypting laptop computers. Additionally, the CE removed social security numbers from its referral form and removed employee social security numbers from its software system. The CE implemented monthly audits on its electronic medical records system and established an annual HIPAA in-service training program for management and staff. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
12,937 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.07M
12,937 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.48M
12,937 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital 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 2014, topped up from other years where 2014 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AGC Flat Glass North America, Inc. Welfare Benefits Plan | Health Plan | 13,079 | 12 Feb 2024 | |||
| PST Services, Inc | Business Associate | 13,074 | 8 Oct 2012 | |||
| Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 12,937 | 24 May 2012 | |||
| 24 ON Physicians PC | Business Associate | 10,104 | 15 Aug 2014 | |||
| PST Services Inc, a McKesson Co. | Business Associate | 10,104 | 8 Aug 2014 |
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 6257.
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.