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 Nov. 28, 2011.
- Organization as reported
- State of Tennessee Sponsored Group Health Plan, TN
- Entity type as reported
- Health Plan
- Category as reported
Unauthorized Access/Disclosure
- Location of information as reported
- Paper/Films
- Submission date
- Nov. 28, 2011
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 15731, row:6870)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
An equipment operator at the state's postal facility set the machine to insert four (4) pages per envelope instead of one (1) page per envelope, which caused the PHI of four individuals to be sent to one address per envelope. The error affected approximately 1770 enrollees. The letters contained information such as names, addresses, birth dates, and social security numbers. As a result, the CE retrained the employee, submitted a breach report to HHS, provided notice to the affected individuals, notified the media, created a toll-free number for information regarding the incident, posted notice on its website, modified policies to remove the SSN on templates for future mailings, and offered identity theft protection to the affected individuals. Following the OCR investigation, the CE provided reviewed its policies and procedures to ensure adequate safeguards are in place. \