Breach filing
ArchivedAmerican Home Patient: 13,709 individuals, Mar 2017.
American Home Patient reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 6 March 2017. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Tennessee and lists 13,709 individuals affected, which makes it the 64th largest of the 196 Tennessee filings on the register and the 64th largest of the 358 filings submitted nationally in 2017. Among the 11 Tennessee filings made in 2017 it ranks 3rd.
Individuals affected
13,709
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.19M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in TN
64th
of 196 Tennessee filings
Rank in 2017
64th
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
- 13,709
- Breach submission date
- 6 March 2017
- Submission year
- 2017
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Other Portable Electronic Device
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Tennessee (TN)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Tennessee by size
- 64th of 196
- Rank in 2017 nationally
- 64th of 358
- Tennessee median filing
- 3,371 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- TN-20170306-american-home-patient
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Tennessee 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 25 of the 196 Tennessee filings (13%) and on 15% of all filings submitted in 2017. Other Portable Electronic Device appears on 3% of Tennessee filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 36% of Tennessee filings do involve one. At 13,709 individuals the breach is 4.1 times the Tennessee median filing of 3,371 and 3.4 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.
Tennessee's breach notification statute (Tenn. Code Ann. 47-18-2107) requires notice to affected residents immediately, but no later than 45 days from discovery or notification. Its attorney general threshold: no mandatory AG notification for private-sector breaches. 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 13,709 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 $2.19M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.63M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by American Home Patient. 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.
The covered entity (CE), American Home Patient, reported that several unencrypted computer hard drives containing the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 13,709 individuals, were stolen. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, health insurance information, Social Security Numbers, diagnoses, dates of birth, financial information, and treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, the media, and local law enforcement. As a result of the breach, the CE implemented additional physical and technical safeguards to better protect its ePHI. OCR provided technical assistance to the CE and obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
13,709 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.19M
13,709 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.63M
13,709 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by American Home Patient 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
Tennessee statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Tennessee: Tenn. Code Ann. 47-18-2107
- Notice to individuals
- Immediately, but no later than 45 days from discovery or notification
- Attorney general threshold
- No mandatory AG notification for private-sector breaches
- Private right of action
- Yes: Affected customers may sue to recover damages and obtain injunctive relief
- Penalty
- AG may pursue civil penalties, injunctive relief, and restitution; class actions restricted
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
Tennessee filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Tennessee 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary Care Specialists, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 65,000 | 9 Mar 2017 | |||
| Cleveland Medical Associates, PLLC | Healthcare Provider | 22,000 | 20 Jun 2017 | |||
| Vanderbilt University Medical Center | Healthcare Provider | 3,247 | 24 Feb 2017 | |||
| Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital | Healthcare Provider | 2,837 | 22 Jun 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 5294.
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.