Breach filing
ArchivedSouthern New Mexico Neurosurgery LLC: 11,754 individuals, Oct 2019.
Southern New Mexico Neurosurgery LLC reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 14 October 2019. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in New Mexico and lists 11,754 individuals affected, which makes it the 18th largest of the 57 New Mexico filings on the register and the 151st largest of the 511 filings submitted nationally in 2019. Among the 5 New Mexico filings made in 2019 it ranks 4th.
Individuals affected
11,754
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$1.88M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in NM
18th
of 57 New Mexico filings
Rank in 2019
151st
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
- 11,754
- Breach submission date
- 14 October 2019
- Submission year
- 2019
- Type of breach
- Improper Disposal
- Location of breached information
- Electronic Medical Record, Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- New Mexico (NM)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in New Mexico by size
- 18th of 57
- Rank in 2019 nationally
- 151st of 511
- New Mexico median filing
- 3,557 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- NM-20191014-southern-new-mexico-neurosurgery
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in New Mexico and in 2019
OCR classifies the incident as improper disposal, with the breached information held in an electronic medical record system and a network server. Improper Disposal is the type recorded on 2 of the 57 New Mexico filings (4%) and on 1% of all filings submitted in 2019. Electronic Medical Record appears on 2% of New Mexico filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 16% of New Mexico filings do involve one. At 11,754 individuals the breach is 3.3 times the New Mexico median filing of 3,557 and 2.9 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.
New Mexico's breach notification statute (N.M. Stat. Ann. 57-12C-1 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents within 45 calendar days following discovery of the breach. Its attorney general threshold: any breach affecting New Mexico 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 11,754 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 $1.88M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.26M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Southern New Mexico Neurosurgery LLC. 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.
Southern New Mexico Neurosurgery, the covered entity (CE), reported that its former business associate (BA) continued to maintain its electronic protected health information (ePHI) on its server after the termination of the business relationship. Additionally, the CE provided its BA with access to its ePHI without having a business associate agreement in place. The ePHI involved included names, birthdates, addresses, claims information, and treatment information. This breach affected approximately 11,754 individuals. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. As a result of the breach, the CE filed a lawsuit against the BA to require the deletion of its ePHI.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
11,754 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$1.88M
11,754 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.26M
11,754 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Southern New Mexico Neurosurgery LLC 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
New Mexico statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
New Mexico: N.M. Stat. Ann. 57-12C-1 et seq.
Data Breach Notification Act
- Notice to individuals
- Within 45 calendar days following discovery of the breach
- Attorney general threshold
- Any breach affecting New Mexico residents
- Private right of action
- No: Only the Attorney General may bring enforcement actions
- Penalty
- Unfair practice under the Unfair Practices Act; injunctive relief, civil penalties, 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
New Mexico filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among New Mexico 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roosevelt General Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 28,847 | 19 Dec 2019 | |||
| Artesia General Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 13,905 | 27 Aug 2019 | |||
| Artesia General Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 858 | 17 Oct 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 4231.
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.