Breach filing
ArchivedLifespan Corporation: 20,431 individuals, Apr 2017.
Lifespan Corporation reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 21 April 2017. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Rhode Island and lists 20,431 individuals affected, which makes it the 7th largest of the 41 Rhode Island filings on the register and the 40th largest of the 358 filings submitted nationally in 2017. Among the 4 Rhode Island filings made in 2017 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
20,431
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$3.27M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in RI
7th
of 41 Rhode Island filings
Rank in 2017
40th
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
- Healthcare Provider
- Individuals affected
- 20,431
- Breach submission date
- 21 April 2017
- Submission year
- 2017
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Laptop
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Rhode Island (RI)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Rhode Island by size
- 7th of 41
- Rank in 2017 nationally
- 40th of 358
- Rhode Island median filing
- 4,000 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- RI-20170421-lifespan
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Rhode Island and in 2017
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in a laptop. Theft is the type recorded on 11 of the 41 Rhode Island filings (27%) and on 15% of all filings submitted in 2017. Laptop appears on 5% of Rhode Island filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 17% of Rhode Island filings do involve one. At 20,431 individuals the breach is 5.1 times the Rhode Island median filing of 4,000 and 5.1 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.
Rhode Island's breach notification statute (R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 11-49.3) requires notice to affected residents within 45 calendar days after confirmation of the breach (30 days for government agencies). Its attorney general threshold: 500 or more Rhode Island 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 20,431 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 $3.27M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $3.92M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Lifespan Corporation. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.6 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.
Metropolitan Community Health Services (Metro), doing business as Agape Health Services, has agreed to pay $25,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and to adopt a corrective action plan to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule. Metro is a Federally Qualified Health Center that provides a variety of discounted medical services to the underserved population in rural North Carolina and these facts were taken into account in reaching this agreement.
On June 9, 2011, Metro filed a breach report regarding the impermissible disclosure of protected health information to an unknown email account. The breach affected 1,263 patients. OCR's investigation revealed longstanding, systemic noncompliance with the HIPAA Security Rule. Specifically, Metro failed to conduct any risk analyses, failed to implement any HIPAA Security Rule policies and procedures, and neglected to provide workforce members with security awareness training until 2016.
"Health care providers owe it to their patients to comply with the HIPAA Rules. When informed of potential HIPAA violations, providers owe it to their patients to quickly address problem areas to safeguard individuals' health information," said Roger Severino, OCR Director.
In addition to the monetary settlement, Metro will undertake a corrective action plan that includes two years of monitoring. The resolution agreement and corrective action plan may be found at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/metro-signed-agreement.pdf - PDF*.
* People using assistive technology may not be able to fully access information in this file. For assistance, contact the HHS Office for Civil Rights at (800) 368-1019, TDD toll-free: (800) 537-7697, or by emailing [email protected].
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
20,431 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$3.27M
20,431 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$3.92M
20,431 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Lifespan Corporation 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
Rhode Island statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Rhode Island: R.I. Gen. Laws Ch. 11-49.3
Identity Theft Protection Act of 2015
- Notice to individuals
- Within 45 calendar days after confirmation of the breach (30 days for government agencies)
- Attorney general threshold
- 500 or more Rhode Island residents (Simultaneously with individual notice)
- Private right of action
- No: No direct individual lawsuits; AG holds exclusive enforcement authority
- Penalty
- Up to $100 per record (reckless) or $200 per record (knowing and willful), no aggregate cap
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
Rhode Island filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Rhode Island 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internal Medicine Associates, LLC d/b/a Gastrointestinal Medicine Associates | Healthcare Provider | 31,835 | 7 Aug 2024 | |||
| CVS Pharmacy | Healthcare Provider | 26,234 | 24 Jul 2020 | |||
| University Gastroenterology, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 15,478 | 8 Sep 2016 | |||
| The Neurology Foundation, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 12,861 | 1 Sep 2017 | |||
| CVS Pharmacy | Healthcare Provider | 836 | 13 Oct 2017 |
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 5255.
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.