Breach filing
ArchivedPioneer Valley Pathology: 24,750 individuals, Aug 2010.
Pioneer Valley Pathology reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 25 August 2010. The filing records the organisation as a business associate in Massachusetts and lists 24,750 individuals affected, which makes it the 45th largest of the 241 Massachusetts filings on the register and the 20th largest of the 199 filings submitted nationally in 2010. Among the 6 Massachusetts filings made in 2010 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
24,750
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$3.96M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MA
45th
of 241 Massachusetts filings
Rank in 2010
20th
of 199 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
- 24,750
- Breach submission date
- 25 August 2010
- Submission year
- 2010
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- Massachusetts (MA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Massachusetts by size
- 45th of 241
- Rank in 2010 nationally
- 20th of 199
- Massachusetts median filing
- 3,900 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MA-20100825-pioneer-valley-pathology
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Massachusetts and in 2010
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in paper records or films. Theft is the type recorded on 21 of the 241 Massachusetts filings (9%) and on 68% of all filings submitted in 2010. Paper/Films appears on 10% of Massachusetts filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 37% of Massachusetts filings. At 24,750 individuals the breach is 6.3 times the Massachusetts median filing of 3,900 and 6.2 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.
Massachusetts's breach notification statute (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93H) requires notice to affected residents as soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (AG and Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation). 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 24,750 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 $3.96M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $4.75M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Pioneer Valley Pathology. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.7 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.
A Boston Globe employee discovered the unsecured paper medical records of Pioneer Valley Pathology, a group practice with offices inside Holyoke Medical Center (HMC), at a trash transfer station. The breach affected approximately 24,750 individuals. The PHI involved in the breach included names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, insurance information, and medical information. HMC is not the covered entity (CE) responsible for this breach and it field the breach report in error. OCR provided HMC with technical assistance related to breach notification. OCR opened a compliance review against the CE responsible for this breach.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
24,750 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$3.96M
24,750 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$4.75M
24,750 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Pioneer Valley Pathology 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
Massachusetts statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Massachusetts: Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93H
paired with 201 CMR 17.00 data-security regulations
- Notice to individuals
- As soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (AG and Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation) (As soon as practicable and without unreasonable delay)
- Private right of action
- Yes: Chapter 93A claims, subject to a 30-day pre-suit demand letter requirement
- Penalty
- Up to $5,000 per violation; treble damages for willful violations, plus attorney fees
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
Massachusetts filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Massachusetts filings in 2010, topped up from other years where 2010 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew SeniorLife, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 27,244 | 11 Sep 2020 | |||
| High Point Treatment Center, Inc.Open | Healthcare Provider | 25,832 | 30 Jan 2026 | |||
| Justice Resource Institute | Healthcare Provider | 23,118 | 26 Apr 2024 | |||
| Joseph A. Gagnon d/b/a Goldthwait Associates | Business Associate | 11,000 | 1 Oct 2010 | |||
| DentaQuest | Business Associate | 10,515 | 9 Jun 2010 |
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 7032.
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.