Breach filing
ArchivedSentara Health: 13,278 individuals, Jun 2025.
Sentara Health reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 9 June 2025. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Virginia and lists 13,278 individuals affected, which makes it the 44th largest of the 157 Virginia filings on the register and the 281st largest of the 798 filings submitted nationally in 2025. Among the 16 Virginia filings made in 2025 it ranks 10th.
Individuals affected
13,278
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.12M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in VA
44th
of 157 Virginia filings
Rank in 2025
281st
of 798 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
- 13,278
- Breach submission date
- 9 June 2025
- Submission year
- 2025
- Type of breach
- Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of breached information
- Electronic Medical Record
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Virginia (VA)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Virginia by size
- 44th of 157
- Rank in 2025 nationally
- 281st of 798
- Virginia median filing
- 4,441 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- VA-20250609-sentara-health
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Virginia and in 2025
OCR classifies the incident as unauthorized access or disclosure, with the breached information held in an electronic medical record system. Unauthorized Access/Disclosure is the type recorded on 31 of the 157 Virginia filings (20%) and on 17% of all filings submitted in 2025. Electronic Medical Record appears on 12% of Virginia filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 39% of Virginia filings do involve one. At 13,278 individuals the breach is 3.0 times the Virginia median filing of 4,441 and 3.3 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.
Virginia's breach notification statute (Va. Code 18.2-186.6) requires notice to affected residents without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (concurrent with individual notice). 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 13,278 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 $2.12M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.55M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Sentara Health. 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), Sentara Health, reported a breach after it discovered that two remote workforce members processing their lab requisitions were not the persons the CE hired to do the work. The breach affected the protected health information (PHI) of 13,278 individuals. The PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and lab results. The CE notified HHS, the affected individuals, the media, and provided substitute notice. In response to the breach, the CE provided complimentary credit monitoring services to the affected individuals and implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect PHI.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
13,278 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.12M
13,278 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.55M
13,278 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Sentara Health 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
Virginia statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Virginia: Va. Code 18.2-186.6
- Notice to individuals
- Without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (concurrent with individual notice) (Concurrent with individual notification)
- Private right of action
- Limited: Individuals may recover direct economic damages (no non-economic damages)
- Penalty
- AG may impose civil penalties up to $150,000 per breach
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
Virginia filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Virginia filings in 2025, topped up from other years where 2025 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwestern Community Services BoardOpen | Healthcare Provider | 21,856 | 29 May 2025 | |||
| Cardiology of Virginia, Inc. | Healthcare Provider | 21,085 | 28 Jan 2025 | |||
| Personic Management Company LLCOpen | Business Associate | 10,929 | 19 Nov 2025 | |||
| Maximus, Inc. | Business Associate | 4,955 | 25 Apr 2025 |
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 359.
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.