Sabine County Hospital Data Breach Affects Thousands of Texas Residents

Preferred Hospital Leasing Hemphill Inc., doing business as Sabine County Hospital, experienced a major data breach. On Feb. 12, 2025, SCH discovered that an employee's email account had been accessed by an unknow actor.

An investigation and review revealed that the hacker may have gained access to patient information contained in logs and documents present within some emails. Compromised patient information includes both personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI).

Exposed information may include names, addresses, dates of birth, genders, Social Security numbers, clinical information such as symptoms, tests, treatment and diagnosis, Medicare number, insurance carrier and financial information such as payment details.

Sabine County Hospital disclosed the data breach to the Texas Attorney General's office on Aug. 7, 2025 and published a security incident notice on its website. The total number of affected patients has not been released but includes at least 7,500 Texas residents.

Sabine County Hospital's response

In addition to required state and federal disclosures, the hospital will notify affected patients by mail.

If you receive a notice from Sabine County Hospital or Preferred Hospital Leasing Hemphill about this breach, you may want to:

• Enroll in free credit monitoring services, if offered.
• Monitor your credit reports and financial accounts for any unusual activity.
• Be alert for phishing emails or phone calls that may use your exposed information.
• Consider placing a fraud alert or credit freeze with major credit bureaus.

Patients with questions about the cybersecurity incident can contact the hospital's privacy officer, Stacey Ebarb, at 409-787-5005 or toll free at 1-855-730-6680, or send her an email at sebarb@sabinecountyhospital.com.

Learn more about the hospital by visiting the Sabine County Hospital website.