Breach filing
ArchivedAcadia Montana Treatment Center: 14,794 individuals, May 2019.
Acadia Montana Treatment Center reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 17 May 2019. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Montana and lists 14,794 individuals affected, which makes it the 11th largest of the 36 Montana filings on the register and the 130th largest of the 511 filings submitted nationally in 2019. Among the 3 Montana filings made in 2019 it ranks 2nd.
Individuals affected
14,794
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.37M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MT
11th
of 36 Montana filings
Rank in 2019
130th
of 511 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
- 14,794
- Breach submission date
- 17 May 2019
- Submission year
- 2019
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Montana (MT)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Montana by size
- 11th of 36
- Rank in 2019 nationally
- 130th of 511
- Montana median filing
- 6,000 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MT-20190517-acadia-montana-treatment-center
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Montana and in 2019
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 20 of the 36 Montana filings (56%) and on 61% of all filings submitted in 2019. Email appears on 36% of Montana filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 14% of Montana filings do involve one. At 14,794 individuals the breach is 2.5 times the Montana median filing of 6,000 and 3.7 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.
Montana's breach notification statute (Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-1704 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches affecting Montana 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 14,794 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 $2.37M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.84M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Acadia Montana Treatment Center. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.4 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.
Acadia Montana Treatment Center, the covered entity (CE), reported that an employee's computer was infected with malware that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 14,794 individuals. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, birthdates, drivers' license numbers, diagnoses/conditions, lab results, medications prescribed, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In its mitigation efforts, the CE retrained its workforce, implemented additional technical safeguards, and sanctioned the workforce member responsible for the breach.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
14,794 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.37M
14,794 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.84M
14,794 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Acadia Montana Treatment Center 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
Montana statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Montana: Mont. Code Ann. 30-14-1704 et seq.
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches affecting Montana residents (When notice is provided to affected individuals)
- Private right of action
- No: Only the Montana Attorney General may bring enforcement actions
- Penalty
- Unfair or deceptive trade practice; up to $10,000 per violation, plus restitution
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
Montana filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Montana filings in 2019, topped up from other years where 2019 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalispell Regional Healthcare | Healthcare Provider | 149,661 | 22 Oct 2019 | |||
| Community Hospital of AnacondaOpen | Healthcare Provider | 21,243 | 19 May 2025 | |||
| Western Health Screening | Business Associate | 15,326 | 14 Apr 2017 | |||
| Billings Clinic | Healthcare Provider | 9,417 | 13 Jul 2018 | |||
| Rocky Boy Health Center | Healthcare Provider | 6,000 | 21 Feb 2019 |
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 4444.
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.