Breach filing
ArchivedSt. Luke's Health System, Ltd.: 15,246 individuals, Apr 2023.
St. Luke's Health System, Ltd. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 6 April 2023. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Idaho and lists 15,246 individuals affected, which makes it the 10th largest of the 29 Idaho filings on the register and the 296th largest of the 746 filings submitted nationally in 2023. Among the 4 Idaho filings made in 2023 it ranks 3rd.
Individuals affected
15,246
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.44M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in ID
10th
of 29 Idaho filings
Rank in 2023
296th
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
- 15,246
- Breach submission date
- 6 April 2023
- Submission year
- 2023
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Idaho (ID)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Idaho by size
- 10th of 29
- Rank in 2023 nationally
- 296th of 746
- Idaho median filing
- 5,500 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- ID-20230406-st-lukes-health-system
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Idaho and in 2023
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 6 of the 29 Idaho filings (21%) and on 16% of all filings submitted in 2023. Paper/Films appears on 3% of Idaho filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 28% of Idaho filings do involve one. At 15,246 individuals the breach is 2.8 times the Idaho median filing of 5,500 and 3.8 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.
Idaho's breach notification statute (Idaho Code 28-51-104 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents as soon as possible, without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: government agencies only (no requirement for commercial entities). 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 15,246 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 $2.44M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.93M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by St. Luke's Health System, Ltd.. 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.
St. Luke's Health System, the covered entity (CE), reported that an employee of its business associate (BA) inadvertently mailed the protected health information (PHI) of 15,246 individuals to the wrong recipient. The PHI involved included names, financial information, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice. In response to the breach, the CE and BA corrected and updated the printing system to prevent similar incident in the future.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
15,246 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.44M
15,246 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.93M
15,246 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by St. Luke's Health System, Ltd. 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
Idaho statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Idaho: Idaho Code 28-51-104 et seq.
- Notice to individuals
- As soon as possible, without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- Government agencies only (no requirement for commercial entities) (Government agencies: within 24 hours of discovery)
- Private right of action
- No: No direct individual lawsuits; AG and primary regulators enforce
- Penalty
- Up to $25,000 per breach for intentional failure to notify
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
Idaho filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Idaho 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain View Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 441,903 | 3 Jul 2023 | |||
| IEC Group, Inc. dba AmeriBen | Business Associate | 74,884 | 24 Aug 2023 | |||
| Idaho Department of Health & Welfare | Health Plan | 2,501 | 12 Jun 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 1855.
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.