HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS Office for Civil Rights breach portal with a submission date of Jan. 10, 2020.
- Organization as reported
- PIH Health, CA
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of information as reported
- Submission date
- Jan. 10, 2020
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 13064, row:4203)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with PIH Health, Inc. (PIH), a California health care network, over potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The violations stem from a phishing attack that exposed unsecured electronic protected health information (ePHI), prompting concerns related to the Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules under HIPAA. OCR enforces the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules (HIPAA Rules), which set forth the requirements that covered entities (health plans, health care clearinghouses, and most health care providers), and business associates must follow to protect the privacy and security of Americans’ protected health information (PHI). “Hacking is one of the most common types of large breaches reported to OCR every year,” said OCR Acting Director Anthony Archeval. “HIPAA-regulated entities need to be proactive and remedy the deficiencies in their HIPAA compliance programs before those deficiencies result in the impermissible disclosure of patients’ protected health information.” The settlement resolves an investigation that OCR conducted after receiving a breach report from PIH in January 2020. The breach report stated that in June 2019, a phishing attack compromised forty-five of its employees’ email accounts, resulting in the breach of 189,763 individuals’ unsecured ePHI. PIH reported that the ePHI disclosed in the phishing attack included affected individuals’ names, addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, diagnoses, lab results, medications, treatment and claims information, and financial information. OCR’s investigation found multiple potential violations of the HIPAA Rules, including: • Failure to use or disclose protected health information only as permitted or required by the HIPAA Privacy Rule. • Failure to conduct an accurate and…