Breach filing
ArchivedRansom Memorial Hospital: 16,366 individuals, Sep 2018.
Ransom Memorial Hospital reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 25 September 2018. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Kansas and lists 16,366 individuals affected, which makes it the 28th largest of the 80 Kansas filings on the register and the 76th largest of the 369 filings submitted nationally in 2018. Among the 6 Kansas filings made in 2018 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
16,366
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.62M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in KS
28th
of 80 Kansas filings
Rank in 2018
76th
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
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 16,366
- Breach submission date
- 25 September 2018
- Submission year
- 2018
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Kansas (KS)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Kansas by size
- 28th of 80
- Rank in 2018 nationally
- 76th of 369
- Kansas median filing
- 7,757 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- KS-20180925-ransom-memorial-hospital
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Kansas 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 59 of the 80 Kansas filings (74%) and on 45% of all filings submitted in 2018. Email appears on 19% of Kansas filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 21% of Kansas filings do involve one. At 16,366 individuals the breach is 2.1 times the Kansas median filing of 7,757 and 4.1 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.
Kansas's breach notification statute (K.S.A. 50-7a01 et seq.) 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 more than 1,000 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 16,366 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 $2.62M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $3.14M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Ransom Memorial Hospital. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.5 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), Ransom Memorial Hospital, reported that an employee was the victim of an email phishing scheme that affected the protected health information (PHI) of 16,366 individuals. The PHI involved included names, dates of birth, Social Security and drivers' license numbers, addresses, birthdates, diagnoses, medications, lab results, and financial information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its PHI. In addition, the CE retrained its workforce members on email security precautions.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
16,366 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.62M
16,366 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$3.14M
16,366 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Ransom Memorial Hospital 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
Kansas statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Kansas: K.S.A. 50-7a01 et seq.
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- No general AG requirement (reporting agencies at more than 1,000 residents)
- Private right of action
- No: Only the Kansas Attorney General may enforce
- Penalty
- Deceptive trade practice; up to $10,000 per violation (up to $20,000 for willful order violations)
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
Kansas filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Kansas 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midwest Transplant Network, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 17,580 | 12 Apr 2021 | |||
| Central Kansas Orthopedic Group, LLC | Healthcare Provider | 17,214 | 28 Jan 2020 | |||
| Community Memorial Healthcare, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 14,798 | 16 Dec 2023 | |||
| Esther V. Rettig, M.D., P.A. | Healthcare Provider | 12,974 | 1 Mar 2018 | |||
| Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services | Healthcare Provider | 11,000 | 17 Apr 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 4727.
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.