Breach filing
ArchivedPenobscot Community Health Center, Inc.: 13,299 individuals, Jul 2019.
Penobscot Community Health Center, Inc. reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 12 July 2019. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Maine and lists 13,299 individuals affected, which makes it the 12th largest of the 37 Maine filings on the register and the 139th largest of the 511 filings submitted nationally in 2019. Among the 2 Maine filings made in 2019 it ranks 2nd.
Individuals affected
13,299
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.13M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in ME
12th
of 37 Maine filings
Rank in 2019
139th
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
- 13,299
- Breach submission date
- 12 July 2019
- Submission year
- 2019
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Other
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- Maine (ME)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Maine by size
- 12th of 37
- Rank in 2019 nationally
- 139th of 511
- Maine median filing
- 4,229 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- ME-20190712-penobscot-community-health-center
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Maine and in 2019
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in another location. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 30 of the 37 Maine filings (81%) and on 61% of all filings submitted in 2019. Other appears on 8% of Maine filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 22% of Maine filings. At 13,299 individuals the breach is 3.1 times the Maine median filing of 4,229 and 3.3 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.
Maine's breach notification statute (10 M.R.S. 1346 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents as expediently as possible and without unreasonable delay, no later than 30 days after discovery. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (no minimum resident threshold). 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 13,299 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 $2.13M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.55M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Penobscot Community Health Center, Inc.. 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.
Penobscot Community Health Center (PCHC) notified OCR that its business associate, American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) discovered that an unauthorized individual accessed its web payment portal sometime between August 1, 2018 and March 30, 2019. The breach affected 13,299 individuals. The protected health information (PHI) involved included names, dates of birth, financial information, and clinical information. PCHC notified OCR, affected individuals, and the media. OCR reviewed PCHC's business associate agreement with AMCA and it was in compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
13,299 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.13M
13,299 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.55M
13,299 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Penobscot Community Health Center, 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
Maine statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Maine: 10 M.R.S. 1346 et seq.
Notice of Risk to Personal Data Act
- Notice to individuals
- As expediently as possible and without unreasonable delay, no later than 30 days after discovery
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (no minimum resident threshold) (Within the same 30-day window)
- Private right of action
- No: No express PROA; claims may run through the Unfair Trade Practices Act
- Penalty
- Up to $500 per violation, capped at $2,500 per day; equitable relief available
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
Maine filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Maine 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Desert Island Hospital, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 29,952 | 30 Jun 2023 | |||
| Sweetser | Healthcare Provider | 22,000 | 13 Sep 2019 | |||
| NAHGA Claim ServicesOpen | Health Plan | 21,834 | 19 Nov 2025 | |||
| Central Maine Medical Center | Healthcare Provider | 11,938 | 21 Jul 2022 | |||
| Spectrum Healthcare Partners | Healthcare Provider | 11,308 | 10 Jan 2020 |
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 4375.
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.