The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Epic and is looking into its data-sharing practices, Reuters reported on Friday.
Citing two sources familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the FTC has sent investigative demands to others in the health technology industry seeking information about how the Verona, Wisconsin-based electronic health record company grants or withholds data access.
Contacted by email, the FTC told Fierce Healthcare it had no comment.
Epic, the largest electronic health record software company in the U.S., now commands 43.7% of the acute-care EHR market, giving the company significant leverage among its hospital customers. The company claims that its software is installed in more than 3,700 hospitals, and more than 325 million patients now have medical records in Epic.
News of the FTC probe comes as Epic's annual Users Group Meeting (UGM) kicks off this week at its headquarters in Verona, Wisconsin, drawing an estimated 20,000 attendees including health system and health tech executives.
STAT also reported that the FTC is examining Epic for potential violations of antitrust law, citing four people who were recently contacted by investigators. STAT's Casey Ross and Brittany Trang reported on Friday that the people contacted by investigators, who work in or advise healthcare businesses that interface with Epic, said they were asked about a wide range of issues relating to company policies and practices.
Federal investigators are reportedly probing Epic on two fronts: its employment agreements that restrict workers from joining a broad range of competing healthcare companies, and allegations that it has used its market dominance to limit rivals' access to patient data needed to operate and compete, according to STAT's reporting.
Epic did not confirm or deny the FTC probe. A company spokesperson said in a statement, "We’re leaders in interoperability to support patient care, and we do not engage in anticompetitive behavior.
"Epic does more to support standards-based data-sharing than any other EHR vendor. 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 exchange data with Epic. Nearly 3,000 apps use open.epic resources today," the spokesperson said in the statement.
The spokesperson also noted that in 2008, Epic built the first EHR-based interoperability network, Care Everywhere, "allowing health systems to share patient records with minimal effort required."
Today, healthcare organizations using Epic exchange over 28 million patient records daily, many between Epic and non-Epic systems, according to the company.
In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Epic alleging the health tech company monopolizes the electronic health record market and cements its dominance in the market through an "anticompetitive playbook." The lawsuit also accuses the company of engaging in deceptive practices that restrict parental access to their minor children’s medical records.
In a statement issued in December, an Epic spokesperson said, "The action taken by Texas is flawed and misguided by its failure to understand both Epic’s business model and position in the market and the enormous contributions our company has made to our nation's healthcare system illustrated by products like MyChart—software that tens of millions of Americans depend on every day."
Epic also faces federal antitrust lawsuits filed by Particle Health and CureIS Healthcare, as both companies accuse the EHR giant of anti-competitive practices.
In its lawsuit, startup Particle Health accuses Epic of monopolistic practices aimed at eliminating competition in the market for payer platforms—technology that facilitates access to patient data for health insurers.
In a separate suit, CureIS Healthcare alleges Epic exploits its market power as the dominant provider of EHRs to eliminate competitors like CureIS in the managed care data reconciliation (MCDR) software market.
Life sciences software company Veeva files a lawsuit against Epic for illegal non-compete practices arguing the company's employment clauses restrained worker mobility and talent recruitment. A Wisconsin judge dismissed that lawsuit in May.