Breach filing
ArchivedMcAlester Regional Health Center: 37,731 individuals, Aug 2023.
McAlester Regional Health Center reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 21 August 2023. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Oklahoma and lists 37,731 individuals affected, which makes it the 16th largest of the 80 Oklahoma filings on the register and the 225th largest of the 746 filings submitted nationally in 2023. Among the 6 Oklahoma filings made in 2023 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
37,731
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$6.04M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in OK
16th
of 80 Oklahoma filings
Rank in 2023
225th
of 746 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
- 37,731
- Breach submission date
- 21 August 2023
- Submission year
- 2023
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Network Server
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Oklahoma (OK)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Oklahoma by size
- 16th of 80
- Rank in 2023 nationally
- 225th of 746
- Oklahoma median filing
- 3,849 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- OK-20230821-mcalester-regional-health-center
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Oklahoma and in 2023
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in a network server. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 58 of the 80 Oklahoma filings (73%) and on 82% of all filings submitted in 2023. Network Server is the most common location in the state, appearing on 51% of Oklahoma filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 33% of Oklahoma filings do involve one. At 37,731 individuals the breach is 9.8 times the Oklahoma median filing of 3,849 and 9.4 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.
Oklahoma's breach notification statute (Okla. Stat. tit. 24, 161 et seq.) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: 500 or more Oklahoma 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 37,731 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 $6.04M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $7.24M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by McAlester Regional Health Center. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 1.1 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), McAlester Regional Health Center, reported that it experienced a ransomware attack that compromised the protected health information (PHI) of 37,731 individuals. The PHI involved included names, Social Security numbers, financial information, and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice on its website. In response to the breach, the CE implemented additional administrative and technical safeguards to better protect sensitive data. OCR provided technical assistance regarding the HIPAA Rules.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
37,731 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$6.04M
37,731 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$7.24M
37,731 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by McAlester Regional Health 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
Oklahoma statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Oklahoma: Okla. Stat. tit. 24, 161 et seq.
amended by SB 626 (effective 1 January 2026)
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- 500 or more Oklahoma residents (No later than 60 days after providing notice to residents)
- Private right of action
- No: No PROA; enforcement is exclusive to the Oklahoma Attorney General
- Penalty
- Up to $150,000 per breach; reduced or waived where reasonable safeguards are demonstrated
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
Oklahoma filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Oklahoma filings in 2023, topped up from other years where 2023 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma Spine Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 38,945 | 5 Nov 2024 | |||
| Oklahoma City Indian Clinic | Healthcare Provider | 38,239 | 9 May 2022 | |||
| Healthback Holdings, LLC | Healthcare Provider | 21,114 | 29 Jul 2022 | |||
| Saint Francis Health System | Healthcare Provider | 18,911 | 26 Jul 2023 | |||
| People Incorporated of Sequoyah County | Healthcare Provider | 8,725 | 5 May 2023 |
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 1543.
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.