The Federal Trade Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Epic, according to an Aug. 14 Reuters report citing two unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Per Reuters’ sources, the FTC has sent investigative demands to other companies in the health technology industry, seeking information on how Epic grants or restricts access to patient data. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment when Reuters sought comment on the probe.
Verona, Wis.-based Epic holds the medical records of hundreds of millions of Americans and commands 43.7% of the U.S. acute care hospital EHR market, according to KLAS. Its systems, including its patient portal MyChart, are used by provider organizations that collectively treat more than 280 million people in the U.S., according to the company’s website. Epic also operates a research platform where participating health systems can study data from 310 million patients who have opted in.
In a statement to Becker’s, an Epic spokesperson said the company does not restrict competitors’ access to data.
“We’re leaders in interoperability to support patient care, and we do not engage in anticompetitive behavior,” the spokesperson said. “Epic does more to support standards-based data-sharing than any other EHR. We were the first EHR to connect to TEFCA — the federally sponsored interoperability network — and the first to do standards-based Diagnostic Image Exchange. We publish more than 1,000 APIs and interfaces on open.epic for developers to use to exchange data with Epic. Nearly 3,000 apps use open.epic resources today.”
The spokesperson added that Epic built the first EHR-based interoperability network, Care Everywhere, in 2008, allowing health systems to exchange patient records with minimal manual effort. Healthcare organizations on Epic now exchange more than 28 million patient records daily, many of them between Epic and non-Epic systems, according to the statement.
The FTC inquiry adds to a string of legal challenges Epic has faced over its data-sharing practices. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the EHR vendor in December, alleging Epic used restrictions and fees to keep healthcare systems from adopting rival platforms. Epic has denied those claims, maintaining its products are interoperable with outside systems and that provider customers, not Epic, control access to patient records.
Epic is also facing a separate lawsuit from Particle Health, a competitor in the market for insurer platforms that review and store medical records at scale. Particle has accused Epic of erecting barriers against potential Particle clients; Epic has called the suit baseless and alleged Particle obtained confidential patient records under false pretenses, an allegation Particle denies.
The Reuters report was published three days before Epic’s User Group Meeting, the company’s annual conference for health system clients, which runs Aug. 17-20 at its Verona, Wis., headquarters.
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