Breach filing
ArchivedWellStar Health System, Inc.: 30,417 individuals, Apr 2022.
WellStar Health System, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 8 April 2022. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Georgia and lists 30,417 individuals affected, which makes it the 61st largest of the 226 Georgia filings on the register and the 204th largest of the 718 filings submitted nationally in 2022. Among the 26 Georgia filings made in 2022 it ranks 11th.
Individuals affected
30,417
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$4.87M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in GA
61st
of 226 Georgia filings
Rank in 2022
204th
of 718 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
- 30,417
- Breach submission date
- 8 April 2022
- Submission year
- 2022
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Georgia (GA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Georgia by size
- 61st of 226
- Rank in 2022 nationally
- 204th of 718
- Georgia median filing
- 5,232 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- GA-20220408-wellstar-health-system
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Georgia and in 2022
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 143 of the 226 Georgia filings (63%) and on 79% of all filings submitted in 2022. Email appears on 23% of Georgia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Georgia filings do involve one. At 30,417 individuals the breach is 5.8 times the Georgia median filing of 5,232 and 7.6 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 30,417 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 $4.87M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $5.84M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by WellStar Health System, Inc.. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.9 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), WellStar Health System, Inc., reported that several employees were victims of an email phishing attack affecting the protected health information (PHI) of 30,417 individuals. The PHI involved included names, lab results, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice. In response to the breach, the CE sanctioned the responsible employees and implemented additional administrative and technical safeguards. Staff were retrained in email security.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
30,417 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$4.87M
30,417 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$5.84M
30,417 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by WellStar Health System, 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 2022, topped up from other years where 2022 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hospital Authority of Valdosta and Lowndes County Georgia | Healthcare Provider | 41,692 | 12 Jan 2022 | |||
| The Physicians' Spine and Rehabilitation Specialists of Georgia, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 38,589 | 2 Sep 2022 | |||
| Creative Hospice Care, Inc. dba Homestead Hospice & Palliative Care | Healthcare Provider | 28,332 | 23 May 2022 | |||
| Bako Diagnostics | Healthcare Provider | 25,745 | 25 Feb 2022 |
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 2582.
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.