PING!
Outrageous.
Epic Systems central in lobbying for health records subsidy, story claims
February 21, 2013
Officials at Epic Systems are not commenting on a New York Times report Wednesday that the firm was central in lobbying Congress on a $19 billion “giveaway” to convert all U.S. medical records from paper to computers.
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The paper’s latest story on electronic health records focuses on the lobbying by Allscript, whose former CEO, Glen Tullman, was health care technology adviser to the 2008 Obama campaign. Sales at the Chicago-based firm have soared from $548 million in 2009 to an estimated $1.44 billion last year, which the report says reflects a $1.3 billion acquisition of Eclipsys in 2009 — based on a bet that the health records stimulus would pass Congress.
Tullman personally made $225,000 in campaign contributions from 2008 to 2012, during what the Times calls a period of “intense lobbying around the passage of the legislation and how the rules for government incentives would be shaped.”
Epic Systems has enjoyed similar growth, with sales going from $650 million in 2009 to $1.2 billion in 2011. The company has grown from 3,400 employees in 2009 to more than 6,200 today at its sprawling complex west of Verona.
While Epic Systems founder and CEO Judy Faulkner is not mentioned by name in the story, records show she personally contributed $328,000 to national political campaigns between 2008 and 2012. A story in Forbes in 2012 listed her personal wealth at over $1.7 billion, an estimate that Epic took issue with.
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“Nothing that these companies did in my eyes was spectacular,” said John Gomez, the former head of technology at Allscripts. “They grew as a result of government incentives.”