The suit accuses Epic of running an \u201canticompetitive playbook\u201d to maintain its health records \u201cmonopoly.\u201d The suit says its goal is to \u201cdismantle Epic\u2019s monopoly\u201d and hold the company accountable for restricting competition.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe will not allow woke corporations to undermine the sacred rights of parents to protect and oversee their kids\u2019 medical well-being,\u201d Paxton said in a statement<\/a> announcing the Epic litigation. \u201cThis lawsuit aims to ensure that Texans can readily obtain access to these records and benefit from the lower costs and innovation that come from a truly competitive electronic health records market.\u201d<\/p>\n But an Epic spokesperson says Texas\u2019 action is \u201cflawed and misguided\u201d because it fails to understand the company\u2019s business model and position in the market. The company maintains it doesn\u2019t determine parental access to health records.<\/p>\n Paxton, a prominent Republican who is running for U.S. Senate in Texas, previously filed at least 100 lawsuits against the Biden administration <\/a>and tried to overturn 2020 presidential election results in other states<\/a>, including Wisconsin<\/a>. He was acquitted in an impeachment trial in 2023<\/a> after allegedly abusing his office to protect a political donor.<\/p>\n The Texas lawsuit comes as Epic has faced antitrust lawsuits over the last year, in which competitors have accused<\/a> the company of trying to prevent competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n The suit says patient data is the backbone of the U.S. health care system and that Epic has \u201camassed control over patient data\u201d by locking hospitals into the company\u2019s electronic health records system.<\/p>\n That\u2019s allowed Epic to \u201cinsert itself as a gatekeeper,\u201d controlling who can access patient data, when they can access it and the terms they can access it under, the suit says.<\/p>\n According to the lawsuit, Epic\u2019s database houses more than 325 million patient records, representing more than 90 percent of all U.S. citizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n Once a hospital is in an Epic database, the suit alleges \u201cit is almost impossible to get out\u201d because switching electronic health records providers can take up to a decade and cost more than $1 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n The suit also alleges that Epic delays or restricts access to health records by potential competitors and \u201ccoerces customers\u201d into not switching to competitor applications by \u201cimposing massive penalty fees\u201d on hospitals that try to use competitors\u2019 products.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEpic holds its customers\u2019 data hostage, limiting its customers\u2019 access to their own data if they work with any company that Epic deems a competitor,\u201d the suit states.\u00a0<\/p>\n Beyond allegedly stifling competition, the suit argues that Epic\u2019s conduct also harms patients. The lawsuit says Epic has sold software to Texas health care providers that is \u201cpreconfigured to remove parental access to their minor children\u2019s\u201d records, which the state argues violates Texas law.<\/p>\n In a statement, an Epic spokesperson said tens of millions of Americans depend on its software every day.<\/p>\n \u201cHealth systems using Epic shared information with almost 1,000 patient-facing apps 2 billion times in the past year,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cEpic does not determine parental access to children\u2019s medical records. Decisions about parental access to children\u2019s medical records are made by doctors and health systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Texas is asking for a court order requiring Epic to \u201ccease all unlawful conduct\u201d and for a ruling requiring the company to pay damages and civil penalties.<\/p>\n Wisconsin Public Radio, \u00a9 Copyright 2025, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state of Texas in a new lawsuit claims Verona-based Epic Systems is running an illegal monopoly and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[101,97,252,253,3],"class_list":{"0":"post-345467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-economy","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ap24292013255739-scaled.jpeg\")
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at a news conference in Dallas on June 22, 2017. AP Photo\/Tony Gutierrez, File<\/p>\n