Breach filing
ArchivedCheyenne Regional Medical Center: 17,549 individuals, Dec 2019.
Cheyenne Regional Medical Center reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 10 December 2019. The filing records the organisation as a healthcare provider in Wyoming and lists 17,549 individuals affected, which makes it the 2nd largest of the 19 Wyoming filings on the register and the 114th largest of the 511 filings submitted nationally in 2019. Among the 2 Wyoming filings made in 2019 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
17,549
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.81M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in WY
2nd
of 19 Wyoming filings
Rank in 2019
114th
of 511 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
- 17,549
- Breach submission date
- 10 December 2019
- Submission year
- 2019
- Type of breach
- Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of breached information
- Business associate present
- No
- State
- Wyoming (WY)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Wyoming by size
- 2nd of 19
- Rank in 2019 nationally
- 114th of 511
- Wyoming median filing
- 5,615 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- WY-20191210-cheyenne-regional-medical-center
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Wyoming and in 2019
OCR classifies the incident as a hacking or IT incident, with the breached information held in email. Hacking/IT Incident is the type recorded on 7 of the 19 Wyoming filings (37%) and on 61% of all filings submitted in 2019. Email appears on 32% of Wyoming filings.
No business associate is recorded on the filing; 32% of Wyoming filings do involve one. At 17,549 individuals the breach is 3.1 times the Wyoming median filing of 5,615 and 4.4 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.
Wyoming's breach notification statute (Wyo. Stat. 40-12-501, 40-12-502) requires notice to affected residents in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. Its attorney general threshold: no AG notification requirement. 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 17,549 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 $2.81M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $3.37M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.5 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), Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, reported that several employees were the victims of an email phishing scheme that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 17,549 individuals. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, Social Security numbers, claims and financial information, diagnoses, medications prescribed, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In its mitigation efforts, the CE implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards to better protect its ePHI. In addition, the CE retrained its workforce members on the proper methods of identifying fraudulent email communications. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
17,549 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.81M
17,549 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$3.37M
17,549 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Cheyenne Regional Medical 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
Wyoming statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Wyoming: Wyo. Stat. 40-12-501, 40-12-502
- Notice to individuals
- In the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay
- Attorney general threshold
- No AG notification requirement
- Private right of action
- No: No PROA; the AG may bring civil action
- Penalty
- AG may seek injunctive relief, compliance orders, and damages; no statutory penalty cap specified
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
Wyoming filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Wyoming filings in 2019, topped up from other years where 2019 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wyoming Department of Health | Health Plan | 164,010 | 29 Apr 2021 | |||
| Community Action partnership of Natrona County | Healthcare Provider | 15,000 | 20 Apr 2011 | |||
| Cheyenne Radiology Group & MRI, P.C. | Healthcare Provider | 12,222 | 9 Feb 2023 | |||
| Wyoming Department of Health | Health Plan | 11,935 | 19 Dec 2013 | |||
| Wyoming Department of Health | Health Plan | 2,154 | 25 Jun 2019 |
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 4140.
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.