Epic fires back at Particle lawsuit

Epic Systems is pushing back against Particle Health.

Particle Health, a startup that helps providers and health technology companies aggregate and share data, filed a suit Monday alleging the electronic health record giant is using its market power to prevent the development products that would compete with Epic's payer platform. Particle also alleges Epic used its influence to obtain a favorable ruling from Carequality, the national interoperability framework used by more than 50,000 healthcare organizations.

Related: Epic hit with antitrust suit by Particle Health

Epic alleges Particle customers were accessing people’s medical records within the Carequality network by falsely claiming to be treating them as patients. On March 21, Epic stopped responding to data-sharing queries from some customers of Particle Health on the Carequality network. Organizations can request patients' medical information from each other through Carequality's framework.

Epic hasn't filed any response to the suit filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. On Friday, the typically quiet EHR giant issued a news release disputing the suit's allegations and said Particle should call on Carequality to publicly release the results of its ruling on the data sharing dispute. By doing this, Epic said “patients, healthcare organizations, other network participants, interoperability advocates, lawmakers, and journalists can evaluate the facts for themselves.”

In response, Particle released a statement Friday, saying “Carequality asked that the resolution remain confidential. If Carequality wishes to release it now, we have no objection.”

In a statement, Carequality said it has proposed a confidential resolution of the dispute to Epic and Particle.

An Epic spokesperson said in March the company shut off access to Particle's platform at the request of customers and because of concerns over potential misuse of protected health information by Particle's customers. The startup disputes the claim. Within the suit it filed Monday, Particle alleges it filed a complaint with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on July 30 claiming the EHR giant shut off access to startup’s platform.