Breach filing
Under investigationDistrict of Columbia, Department of Health Care Finance: 399,086 individuals, Sep 2026.
District of Columbia, Department of Health Care Finance reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 3 September 2026. The filing records the organisation as a health plan in Maryland and lists 399,086 individuals affected, which makes it the 14th largest of the 171 Maryland filings on the register and the 21st largest of the 534 filings submitted nationally in 2026. Among the 11 Maryland filings made in 2026 it ranks 2nd.
Individuals affected
399,086
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$63.9M
Upper bound, method shown
Rank in MD
14th
of 171 Maryland filings
Rank in 2026
21st
of 534 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
- Health Plan
- Individuals affected
- 399,086
- Breach submission date
- 3 September 2026
- Submission year
- 2026
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Electronic Medical Record
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Maryland (MD)
- Portal status
- listed by HHS OCR under Cases Currently Under Investigation
- Rank in Maryland by size
- 14th of 171
- Rank in 2026 nationally
- 21st of 534
- Maryland median filing
- 4,792 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MD-20260903-district-of-columbia-department-of-healt
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Maryland and in 2026
OCR classifies the incident as unauthorized access or disclosure, with the breached information held in an electronic medical record system. Unauthorized Access/Disclosure is the type recorded on 34 of the 171 Maryland filings (20%) and on 14% of all filings submitted in 2026. Electronic Medical Record appears on 8% of Maryland filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 38% of Maryland filings do involve one. At 399,086 individuals the breach is 83 times the Maryland median filing of 4,792 and 100 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,982 filings. It is one of 810 filings of 100,000 or more individuals.
As of 1 October 2026 the case is listed by HHS OCR under Cases Currently Under Investigation. OCR has not published a closing summary, so this page is limited to the fields on the filing itself; the archive entry that follows a closed investigation usually adds a short account of what was exposed and what the entity did afterwards.
Maryland's breach notification statute (Md. Code, Com. Law 14-3504) requires notice to affected residents within 45 days after discovery or notification of the breach. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (AG notified before individual notices are sent). 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 399,086 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 $63.9M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $76.6M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by District of Columbia, Department of Health Care Finance. 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.5 / Modelled cost
399,086 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
Upper boundIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$63.9M
399,086 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$76.6M
399,086 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by District of Columbia, Department of Health Care Finance 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
Maryland statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Maryland: Md. Code, Com. Law 14-3504
- Notice to individuals
- Within 45 days after discovery or notification of the breach
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (AG notified before individual notices are sent) (Before individual notifications are sent)
- Private right of action
- No: No PROA under the breach statute; AG enforcement only
- Penalty
- Unfair or deceptive trade practice; up to $10,000 per violation, $25,000 per repeat violation
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
Maryland filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Maryland filings in 2026, topped up from other years where 2026 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Insightin Health, Inc.Open | Business Associate | 1,949,534 | 16 Jan 2026 | |||
| ASC Ortho Management Company, LLC d/b/a Aligned Orthopedic PartnersOpen | Healthcare Provider | 7,213 | 17 Apr 2026 | |||
| Axis Healthcare Group P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 3,537 | 28 Jan 2026 |
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 2026-10-01. 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 1 October 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-under-investigation__2026-10-01.csv, export row 12.
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.