Epic, Particle Health propose briefing schedule for lawsuit

Epic and Particle Health are briefly working together as their conflict continues to play out in court. 

On Monday, the two companies jointly filed a proposed briefing schedule for Epic's motion to dismiss Particle's antitrust suit against the electronic health record vendor. Particle Health, a startup that helps providers and health technology companies aggregate and share data, filed the suit in September. The startup alleges Epic is using its market power to prevent products that would compete with the EHR company's payer platform.  

Related: Epic, Particle Health agree to resolution, but suit will continue

The proposed briefing schedule set the deadline for Epic to file its motion to dismiss by Dec. 19 and for Particle Health to file its opposition by Jan. 9. If approved, Epic would have until Jan. 24 to reply to Particle's opposition, according to a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

A federal judge must approve the proposed briefing schedule. 

A Particle Health spokesperson said the company is confident its claims will survive the motion.

Epic, which has previously denied the claims in the suit, declined to add additional comment. 

In March, Epic filed a dispute with Carequality over alleged misuse of protected health information by Particle Health. Particle disputed these claims in its September lawsuit. 

Last month, the companies agreed to a dispute resolution introduced by Carequality, a national interoperability nonprofit and healthcare industry stakeholder that works with both organizations. Carequality's resolution called for Particle Health to be placed on a corrective action plan for six months to ensure the company followed proper customer onboarding procedures while Epic was required to keep Carequality privy for six months on its access policies. 

Particle said the resolution did not address all of its alleged issues with Epic, so it was not dropping the suit.