Breach filing
ArchivedMercy Health: 11,187 individuals, Dec 2020.
Mercy Health reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 4 December 2020. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Missouri and lists 11,187 individuals affected, which makes it the 57th largest of the 164 Missouri filings on the register and the 244th largest of the 663 filings submitted nationally in 2020. Among the 14 Missouri filings made in 2020 it ranks 6th.
Individuals affected
11,187
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$1.79M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MO
57th
of 164 Missouri filings
Rank in 2020
244th
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
- 11,187
- Breach submission date
- 4 December 2020
- Submission year
- 2020
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Electronic Medical Record
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Missouri (MO)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Missouri by size
- 57th of 164
- Rank in 2020 nationally
- 244th of 663
- Missouri median filing
- 4,800 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MO-20201204-mercy-health
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Missouri and in 2020
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 43 of the 164 Missouri filings (26%) and on 21% of all filings submitted in 2020. Electronic Medical Record appears on 7% of Missouri filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 23% of Missouri filings do involve one. At 11,187 individuals the breach is 2.3 times the Missouri median filing of 4,800 and 2.8 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.
Missouri's breach notification statute (Mo. Rev. Stat. 407.1500) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: more than 1,000 Missouri consumers. 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 11,187 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 $1.79M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.15M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Mercy Health. 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.
The covered entity (CE), Mercy Health, reported that an employee impermissibly accessed the protected health information (PHI) of 11,187 individuals. The PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, diagnoses, lab results, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and posted substitute notice on its website. In response to the breach, the CE sanctioned the employee and provided affected individuals with complimentary credit monitoring services and implemented additional technical safeguards.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
11,187 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$1.79M
11,187 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.15M
11,187 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Mercy Health 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
Missouri statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Missouri: Mo. Rev. Stat. 407.1500
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- More than 1,000 Missouri consumers (Without unreasonable delay)
- Private right of action
- No: AG has exclusive enforcement authority
- Penalty
- Up to $150,000 per breach (or series) for willful and knowing violations
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
Missouri filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Missouri 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cornerstones of Care | Healthcare Provider | 15,680 | 12 Nov 2020 | |||
| Washington University School of Medicine | Healthcare Provider | 14,795 | 31 Mar 2020 | |||
| Southeast Health Center of Ripley County | Healthcare Provider | 5,944 | 11 Dec 2020 | |||
| University of Missouri Health Care | Healthcare Provider | 5,074 | 11 Jun 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 3513.
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.