Breach filing
ArchivedSouthCoast Medical Group, LLC: 450,860 individuals, Aug 2023.
SouthCoast Medical Group, LLC reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 17 August 2023. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Georgia and lists 450,860 individuals affected, which makes it the 12th largest of the 226 Georgia filings on the register and the 68th largest of the 746 filings submitted nationally in 2023. Among the 22 Georgia filings made in 2023 it ranks 3rd.
Individuals affected
450,860
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$72.1M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in GA
12th
of 226 Georgia filings
Rank in 2023
68th
of 746 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
- 450,860
- Breach submission date
- 17 August 2023
- Submission year
- 2023
- 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
- 12th of 226
- Rank in 2023 nationally
- 68th of 746
- Georgia median filing
- 5,232 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- GA-20230817-southcoast-medical-group
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Georgia and in 2023
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 82% of all filings submitted in 2023. Network Server appears on 46% of Georgia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Georgia filings do involve one. At 450,860 individuals the breach is 86 times the Georgia median filing of 5,232 and 113 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 450,860 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 $72.1M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $86.6M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by SouthCoast Medical Group, LLC. 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.
The covered entity (CE), SouthCoast Medical Group, LLC, reported that it experienced a hacking incident that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 450,860 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, addresses, Social Security numbers, diagnoses/conditions, and financial and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, the affected individuals, and provided substitute notice. In response to the breach, the CE implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its PHI.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
450,860 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$72.1M
450,860 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$86.6M
450,860 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by SouthCoast Medical Group, LLC 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 2023, topped up from other years where 2023 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managed Care of North America | Business Associate | 8,627,242 | 26 May 2023 | |||
| NASCO | Business Associate | 1,744,655 | 10 Oct 2023 | |||
| Synergy Healthcare Services | Business Associate | 296,956 | 31 Jul 2023 | |||
| Privia Medical Group of Georgia, LLC | Healthcare Provider | 212,789 | 18 Aug 2023 |
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 1552.
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.