Breach filing
ArchivedBoston Baskin Cancer Foundation: 56,694 individuals, Feb 2015.
Boston Baskin Cancer Foundation reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 2 February 2015. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Tennessee and lists 56,694 individuals affected, which makes it the 39th largest of the 196 Tennessee filings on the register and the 19th largest of the 270 filings submitted nationally in 2015. Among the 5 Tennessee filings made in 2015 it ranks 2nd.
Individuals affected
56,694
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$9.07M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in TN
39th
of 196 Tennessee filings
Rank in 2015
19th
of 270 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
- 56,694
- Breach submission date
- 2 February 2015
- Submission year
- 2015
- 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
- 39th of 196
- Rank in 2015 nationally
- 19th of 270
- Tennessee median filing
- 3,371 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- TN-20150202-boston-baskin-cancer-foundation
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Tennessee and in 2015
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 30% of all filings submitted in 2015. 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 56,694 individuals the breach is 17 times the Tennessee median filing of 3,371 and 14 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 56,694 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 $9.07M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $10.9M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Boston Baskin Cancer Foundation. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 1.6 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.
On December 2, 2014, a Boston Baskin Cancer Foundation employee's laptop computer and external hard drive were stolen. The external hard drive contained the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 56,000 individuals and included patients' names, dates of birth, social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, clinic medical record numbers, and the first and last dates seen by the clinic. The investigation concluded that the ePHI was copied and stored on an unencrypted external hard. The covered entity (CE) provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media, and offered affected individuals complimentary credit monitoring. In response to the breach, the CE deployed software to prevent the downloading of unencrypted documents from computers to portable media. The CE implemented a policy requiring employees to create a passcode for their mobile devices. The CE also revised its risk management policy and established procedures for the removal of hardware and electronic media containing ePHI. After the breach the CE retrained staff and physicians on its HIPAA policies. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions listed above.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
56,694 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$9.07M
56,694 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$10.9M
56,694 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Boston Baskin Cancer Foundation 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 2015, topped up from other years where 2015 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tennessee Rural Health Improvement Association | Health Plan | 79,000 | 13 Jan 2015 | |||
| National Seating & Mobility, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 9,627 | 12 Jun 2015 | |||
| Wellmont Health System | Healthcare Provider | 1,726 | 24 Apr 2015 |
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 5932.
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.