Breach filing
ArchivedDetroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion: 10,000 individuals, Dec 2009.
Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 15 December 2009. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Michigan and lists 10,000 individuals affected, which makes it the 75th largest of the 238 Michigan filings on the register and the 2nd largest of the 18 filings submitted nationally in 2009. Among the 2 Michigan filings made in 2009 it ranks 1st. Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion submitted 1 further report on the same day (646 individuals); this page covers the largest and lists the others below.
Individuals affected
10,000
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$1.60M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MI
75th
of 238 Michigan filings
Rank in 2009
2nd
of 18 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
- 10,000
- Breach submission date
- 15 December 2009
- Submission year
- 2009
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Other Portable Electronic Device
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Michigan (MI)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Michigan by size
- 75th of 238
- Rank in 2009 nationally
- 2nd of 18
- Michigan median filing
- 3,754 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MI-20091215-detroit-department-of-health-and-wellnes
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Michigan and in 2009
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in another portable electronic device. Theft is the type recorded on 20 of the 238 Michigan filings (8%) and on 83% of all filings submitted in 2009. Other Portable Electronic Device appears on 4% of Michigan filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 30% of Michigan filings do involve one. At 10,000 individuals the breach is 2.7 times the Michigan median filing of 3,754 and 2.5 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.
Michigan's breach notification statute (MCL 445.72) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: not currently required (pending SB 360 would require it at 100+ 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 10,000 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 $1.60M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $1.92M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.3 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.
\N
Section F.4 / Same-day filings
1 further report by Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion on 15 December 2009
Separate rows on the HHS portal with their own counts; this page covers the largest and lists the rest here rather than giving each its own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion | Healthcare Provider | 646 | 15 Dec 2009 |
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
10,000 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$1.60M
10,000 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$1.92M
10,000 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion 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
Michigan statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Michigan: MCL 445.72
Identity Theft Protection Act
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- Not currently required (pending SB 360 would require it at 100+ residents)
- Private right of action
- No: No PROA under the statute; other theories such as negligence may apply
- Penalty
- Up to $250 per failed notification, capped at $750,000 per breach event
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
Michigan filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Michigan filings in 2009, topped up from other years where 2009 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agent Benefits Corporation | Business Associate | 11,387 | 26 May 2011 | |||
| Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 10,000 | 15 Jan 2010 | |||
| H.E.L.P. Financial Corporation | Business Associate | 9,475 | 3 Dec 2010 | |||
| IVF Michigan, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 9,383 | 18 Jul 2023 | |||
| Detroit Department of Health and Wellness Promotion | Healthcare Provider | 646 | 15 Dec 2009 |
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 7160.
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.