Posted on 12/16/2025 6:23:21 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Verona-based Epic Systems, alleging the company runs an illegal monopoly and blocks parents from accessing their children's medical records.
Paxton's suit alleges that Epic uses its electronic health records (EHR) software to effectively control how and when that data can be accessed. Additionally, the suit alleges that Epic makes it nearly impossible for health care providers to switch EHR providers by imposing huge financial penalties for doing so.
"Epic publicly admits it does not "own" those records," Paxton wrote. "But Epic has used its position as an EHR software database architect to insert itself as a gatekeeper, determining who can and cannot access these records."
The suit also alleges that Epic limits its customers' access to their own data if they work with a company that Epic sees as a competitor. Epic also allegedly imposes massive penalties on hospitals that try to use products from Epic's competitors that rely on EHR data.
Paxton alleges that Epic sold EHR software to Texas-based health care providers that was preconfigured to block parents' access to their minor children's records. Paxton believes such actions violate his state's laws.
"We will not allow woke corporations to undermine the sacred rights of parents to protect and oversee their kids’ medical well-being," Paxton said in a statement announcing the suit. "This 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."
Paxton, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, has served as Texas Attorney General since 2015. He was accused that same year of state securities fraud, but those charges were dropped earlier this year.
In 2020, Paxton was accused by former staffers of bribery and abuse of office. He was impeached in 2023 and suspended from office, but the Texas Senate later voted to acquit him and he returned to his post.
An Epic spokesperson called the suit "flawed and misguided" and said that Paxton does not understand the company's business model and market position.
"Every month, we improve quality of care by helping providers see a more comprehensive picture of their patient through over 725 million record exchanges—more than any other electronic health records vendor—and over half of these are with non-Epic systems," the spokesperson said in a statement. "Health systems using Epic shared information with almost 1,000 patient-facing apps 2 billion times in the past year."
The company also denied limiting access to children's medical records, and said decisions on access are made by doctors and health systems.
This isn't the first time the Epic has been accused of stifling competition. Minnesota-based CureIS sued the company earlier this year, alleging Epic misused trade secrets, used an exclusivity policy that interfered with CureIS contracts and made misleading claims about the company's software in comparison to CureIS.
Paxton's suit also targets Epic's non-compete agreements, which the AG says violates Texas law. According to the suit, the agreements block employees from working at other health care software firms for up to two years after they leave Epic, unless they get approval.
The lawsuit claims that the agreements blocked employees from working at Texas-based firms including the UTHealth of Houston School of Public Health and the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
The suit alleges that Epic enforces its non-competes by denying former employees log-in credentials, blocking them from working in hospitals that use Epic's software.
Paxton's suit asks for damages as well as a court order directing Epic to restore competitive conditions in the markets affected by its alleged misconduct.
eh? monopoly? i don’t think so, if anyone is monopoly that’s steam, but in this case steam is the good guy, for a monopoly.
Is this the same Epic company?
https://epic.org/issues/democracy-free-speech/voter-privacy/
Voter Privacy
Background
Secrecy and privacy in elections guard against coercion and are essential to the integrity of the electoral process. EPIC has a long history of working on voter privacy issues, from the right to a secret ballot to voter registration information privacy and voter ID.
EPIC needs your support to be an independent voice challenging Big Tech and government data abuses in 2026. Defend Privacy. Support EPIC.
Epic probably designed the whole damn data model.
It might be your car, but it’s sitting in Epic’s garage.
Is this the same Epic company?
https://epic.org/issues/democracy-free-speech/voter-privacy/
Well WI isn’t DC
But does that prove they aren’t connected in any way ?
It appears the one in DC has its finger in many data privacy areas
“Issues
Data Protection
Data Protection laws safeguard personal data by regulating the ways private companies and governments store and use data.”
And the one in WI also specializes in data protection
“Epic uses its electronic health records (EHR) software to effectively control how and when that data can be accessed.
Maybe it is just coincidence they both protect data.
The WI company is ‘Epic Systems.’ She designed software that almost every hospital/clinic/health care entity uses. She’s a billionaire a few times over by now.
Yes, this is the place where you can be as successful as you want to be.
But oh no don't be THAT successful! NNNoooooOOOO!!!!
That's it. You have become too successful. I'm sicking the government on you. Government! Sic em!!!!!!
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In the above is completely an anti-American and anti-free market attitude. It is lost on me how people don't see it.
You've been too successful so I'm going to tattle tail on you and tell government to harass you.
I know, it is just me. But I couldn't imagine sicking the government on someone simply because they were too successful.
You didn’t read the article did you
I chose to comment on the Forest. Not the trees.
So, you are not commenting on the article at all? Just throwing shade at a software company being sued for abusing their control of customers data?
I would imagine psychiatric and venereal disease records might not automatically show up.
Special menu options might have to be used with a password known by the patient.
I threw shade at progressivism. Not one word I typed was negative toward (the company)Epic.
Not one.
Maybe read my comment?
I would think a medical record might be presented as
BRIAN GRIFFIN
AGE: 67
Medicare
No 2nd
Active Condition 1
Active Condition 2
Redacted
Closed Condition 1
Drug 1
Drug 2
Drug 3
Redacted
Redacted
Blood sugar...
....
XR Thorax 12/01/18
XR Foot, Right 07/04/21
MRI Shoulder, Right 05/13/22
Flu Vax
Covid Vax
Shingles Vax
If care was say obtained at Planned Parenthood, PP might have restricted the information to itself if their patient was a minor or if an abortion was performed.
.com = healthcare software
.net = privacy advocate
epik.com = domain registrar
Epic has become a monster in the Medical Records world.
Every week I listen to emergency management calls from my wife’s hospital dealing with the potential cyber attack that is going to happen against them. They are so large that they have become a single point of failure risk for an “industry.”
Hospitals would stop on a dime if Epic went down. It’s scary.
That said, I find their patient portal to be accessible for myself and my wife. It’s easy to navigate and if the providers are using it correctly, all of my information is available. It’s made billing and payments more accurate and easy. Before the health system went to Epic, I had never received and accurate bill from them. And for several years my wife was a “super user” of their services.
Going into the “cloud” is a double edged sword.
Please let this happen.
EPIC is a shitshow. I think they bribe all the hospital administrators.
The program is tedious.
The glitches are huge.
They could be fixed by a competent programmer, but they hire third world dummies.
They are not usable for the lab without a ton of major fixes.
It’s a garbage program
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