Breach filing
ArchivedIowa Health System d/b/a UnityPoint Health: 1,421,107 individuals, Jul 2018.
Iowa Health System d/b/a UnityPoint Health reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 30 July 2018. The filing records the organisation as a business associate in Iowa and lists 1,421,107 individuals affected, which makes it the 1st largest of the 98 Iowa filings on the register and the 2nd largest of the 369 filings submitted nationally in 2018. Among the 10 Iowa filings made in 2018 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
1,421,107
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$227M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in IA
1st
of 98 Iowa filings
Rank in 2018
2nd
of 369 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
- Business Associate
- Individuals affected
- 1,421,107
- Breach submission date
- 30 July 2018
- Submission year
- 2018
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- Iowa (IA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Iowa by size
- 1st of 98
- Rank in 2018 nationally
- 2nd of 369
- Iowa median filing
- 4,336 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- IA-20180730-iowa-health-system-d-b-a-unitypoint-heal
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Iowa and in 2018
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 66 of the 98 Iowa filings (67%) and on 45% of all filings submitted in 2018. Email appears on 29% of Iowa filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 34% of Iowa filings. At 1,421,107 individuals the breach is 328 times the Iowa median filing of 4,336 and 355 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It is one of 149 filings on the register of one million 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.
Iowa's breach notification statute (Iowa Code Ch. 715C) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: 500 or more Iowa 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 1,421,107 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 $227M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $273M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Iowa Health System d/b/a UnityPoint Health. 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.
Iowa Health System dba UnityPoint Health, the covered entity (CE), reported that multiple employees were the subjects of an email phishing scheme that compromised the protected health information (PHI) of 1,421,107 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, Social Security and drivers' license numbers, claims and financial information, diagnoses, lab results, medications, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its sensitive data. All staff were retrained.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
1,421,107 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$227M
1,421,107 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$273M
1,421,107 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Iowa Health System d/b/a UnityPoint Health 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
Iowa statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Iowa: Iowa Code Ch. 715C
Personal Information Security Breach Protection Act
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- 500 or more Iowa residents (Within five business days after notifying consumers)
- Private right of action
- No: No private right of action; AG enforcement only
- Penalty
- Unlawful practice under the consumer fraud statute; injunctive relief, civil penalties, and damages
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
Iowa filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Iowa filings in 2018, topped up from other years where 2018 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PurFoods, LLC | Healthcare Provider | 1,289,643 | 25 Aug 2023 | |||
| OpenLoop Health, Inc.Open | Business Associate | 716,000 | 17 Mar 2026 | |||
| Wolfe Clinic, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 530,299 | 9 Sep 2022 | |||
| Jones Eye Center, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 39,605 | 22 Oct 2018 | |||
| CJ Elmwood Partners, L.P. | Healthcare Provider | 22,416 | 22 Oct 2018 |
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 4779.
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.