All articles
Texas AG Hits Epic with Lawsuit, Alleging Monopoly
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Epic Systems, accusing the EHR giant of monopolizing the market.
Key Points
- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Epic Systems, accusing the EHR giant of monopolizing the market and unlawfully restricting parental access to children's medical records.
- The lawsuit alleges Epic leverages its 40% market share to lock in health systems, creating a monopoly that stifles innovation and increases costs.
- Paxton's suit also targets Epic's software for automatically restricting parental access to medical records for children over 12, labeling it a "woke" corporate policy.
- Epic refutes the claims, arguing that healthcare providers control data access and that its system facilitates over 725 million record exchanges monthly.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing electronic health record (EHR) giant Epic Systems, accusing the company of illegally monopolizing the market and violating state law by restricting parental access to their children's medical data.
The data gatekeeper: The suit alleges Epic leverages its more than 40% market share to lock health systems into its ecosystem with high switching costs and technical barriers. The state claims the result is a market where new ideas are choked out and costs inevitably rise.
Enter the culture war: But it's not just about market dominance. Paxton is also attacking Epic as a "woke corporation," claiming its software automatically restricts parental access to a child's medical records once they turn 12. "We will not allow woke corporations to undermine the sacred rights of parents," Paxton declared in a statement.
Epic's simple defense: Epic fired back, calling the lawsuit "flawed and misguided." The company’s defense is simple: doctors and health systems—not the software vendor—make the final decisions on parental access. To counter the monopoly claims, Epic points to the more than 725 million record exchanges it facilitates monthly as proof of its interoperability.
The legal battle opens a new front in the war over health data control. It’s not Epic's first antitrust fight, as the company is already facing a federal lawsuit from data platform Particle Health. The lawsuit also escalates Paxton's ongoing campaign against EHR vendors, which previously secured a settlement with a Texas clinic over the same parental access issue.
.png){kind=spacer}