Breach filing
ArchivedSouthern Hills Eye Care: 14,609 individuals, Mar 2019.
Southern Hills Eye Care reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 15 March 2019. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Iowa and lists 14,609 individuals affected, which makes it the 34th largest of the 98 Iowa filings on the register and the 132nd largest of the 511 filings submitted nationally in 2019. Among the 5 Iowa filings made in 2019 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
14,609
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.34M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in IA
34th
of 98 Iowa filings
Rank in 2019
132nd
of 511 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
- 14,609
- Breach submission date
- 15 March 2019
- Submission year
- 2019
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Iowa (IA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Iowa by size
- 34th of 98
- Rank in 2019 nationally
- 132nd of 511
- Iowa median filing
- 4,336 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- IA-20190315-southern-hills-eye-care
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Iowa and in 2019
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 66 of the 98 Iowa filings (67%) and on 61% of all filings submitted in 2019. Network Server is the most common location in the state, appearing on 50% of Iowa filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 34% of Iowa filings do involve one. At 14,609 individuals the breach is 3.4 times the Iowa median filing of 4,336 and 3.7 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.
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 14,609 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 $2.34M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.80M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Southern Hills Eye Care. 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.
The covered entity (CE), Southern Hills Eye Care, reported that it was the subject of a ransomware attack that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 14,609 individuals. The PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, diagnoses/conditions, lab results, medications prescribed, and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In its mitigation efforts, the CE provided complimentary credit monitoring services and implemented additional administrative safeguards to better protect and secure its PHI.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
14,609 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.34M
14,609 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.80M
14,609 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Southern Hills Eye Care 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 2019, topped up from other years where 2019 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iowa Health System d/b/a UnityPoint Health | Business Associate | 16,429 | 16 Apr 2018 | |||
| Mercy Iowa City | Healthcare Provider | 15,625 | 25 Mar 2016 | |||
| Nelson Pharmacy Consulting Services PLC | Healthcare Provider | 13,752 | 10 Feb 2023 | |||
| Virginia Gay Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 5,030 | 16 Aug 2019 | |||
| Amerigroup Iowa, Inc. | Business Associate | 1,191 | 29 Mar 2019 |
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 4544.
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.