Breach filing
ArchivedWestern Health Screening: 15,326 individuals, Apr 2017.
Western Health Screening reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 14 April 2017. The filing records the organisation as a business associate in Montana and lists 15,326 individuals affected, which makes it the 10th largest of the 36 Montana filings on the register and the 58th largest of the 358 filings submitted nationally in 2017. It was the only Montana filing in 2017.
Individuals affected
15,326
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.45M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MT
10th
of 36 Montana filings
Rank in 2017
58th
of 358 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
- 15,326
- Breach submission date
- 14 April 2017
- Submission year
- 2017
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Other Portable Electronic Device
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- Montana (MT)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Montana by size
- 10th of 36
- Rank in 2017 nationally
- 58th of 358
- Montana median filing
- 6,000 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MT-20170414-western-health-screening
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Montana and in 2017
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in another portable electronic device. Theft is the type recorded on 7 of the 36 Montana filings (19%) and on 15% of all filings submitted in 2017. Other Portable Electronic Device appears on 8% of Montana filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 14% of Montana filings. At 15,326 individuals the breach is 2.6 times the Montana median filing of 6,000 and 3.8 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.
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 15,326 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 $2.45M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.94M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Western Health Screening. 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.
Western Health Screening contracts with hospitals to provide onsite blood screenings at hospital-sponsored health fairs. On February 7, 2017, while one of the its employees was en route to a health fair, a portable electronic storage device (a "jump drive") containing unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI) and five laptop computers were stolen from the employee's car. The laptops were encrypted, but the jump drive was not. The types of ePHI involved in the breach included the names, addresses, zip codes and social security numbers of 15,326 patients. Western Health provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals and the media. Following the breach Western Health sanctioned the employee who was involved, retrained employees, and encrypted all of its jump drives. OCR obtained assurances that Western Health implemented the corrective actions noted above.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
15,326 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.45M
15,326 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.94M
15,326 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Western Health Screening 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 2017, topped up from other years where 2017 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ortho Montana, PSC | Healthcare Provider | 37,000 | 8 Feb 2011 | |||
| New West Health Services d/b/a New West Medicare | Health Plan | 28,209 | 15 Jan 2016 | |||
| Community Hospital of AnacondaOpen | Healthcare Provider | 21,243 | 19 May 2025 | |||
| Acadia Montana Treatment Center | Healthcare Provider | 14,794 | 17 May 2019 | |||
| Billings Clinic | Healthcare Provider | 9,417 | 13 Jul 2018 |
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 5260.
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.