Breach filing
ArchivedOaklawn Hospital: 26,861 individuals, Sep 2020.
Oaklawn Hospital reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 25 September 2020. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Michigan and lists 26,861 individuals affected, which makes it the 53rd largest of the 238 Michigan filings on the register and the 178th largest of the 663 filings submitted nationally in 2020. Among the 22 Michigan filings made in 2020 it ranks 6th.
Individuals affected
26,861
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$4.30M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MI
53rd
of 238 Michigan filings
Rank in 2020
178th
of 663 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
- 26,861
- Breach submission date
- 25 September 2020
- Submission year
- 2020
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Michigan (MI)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Michigan by size
- 53rd of 238
- Rank in 2020 nationally
- 178th of 663
- Michigan median filing
- 3,754 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MI-20200925-oaklawn-hospital
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Michigan and in 2020
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 148 of the 238 Michigan filings (62%) and on 69% of all filings submitted in 2020. Email appears on 29% of Michigan filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 30% of Michigan filings do involve one. At 26,861 individuals the breach is 7.2 times the Michigan median filing of 3,754 and 6.7 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 26,861 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 $4.30M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $5.16M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Oaklawn Hospital. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.8 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), Oaklawn Hospital, reported that several employees were the victims of an email phishing attack that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 26,861 individuals. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, clinical information, Social Security numbers, drivers' license numbers, and financial and claims information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided complimentary credit monitoring services. In response to the breach, the CE strengthened its administrative and technical safeguards to better protect its sensitive data. Workforce members were also retrained on recognizing and responding to fraudulent email communications. OCR provided the CE with technical assistance regarding the HIPAA Security Rule.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
26,861 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$4.30M
26,861 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$5.16M
26,861 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Oaklawn 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
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 2020, topped up from other years where 2020 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spectrum Health | Healthcare Provider | 52,711 | 1 Sep 2020 | |||
| Priority Health | Health Plan | 36,812 | 21 Dec 2020 | |||
| Mediclaim, LLC | Business Associate | 14,931 | 22 May 2020 | |||
| Midmark RTLS Solutions, Inc. | Business Associate | 7,422 | 5 May 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 3669.
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.