Epic hit with antitrust suit by Particle Health

A startup’s dispute with electronic health record giant Epic Systems has escalated to court.

Particle Health, a startup that helps providers and health technology companies aggregate and share data, filed a suit Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging Epic is using its market power to prevent products that would compete with the EHR company's payer platform.  

Related: Epic dispute reveals trust gap between providers, tech companies

Particle also alleges Epic used its influence to obtain a favorable ruling from Carequality, the national interoperability framework used by more than 50,000 organizations including clinics, hospitals and health tech companies. 

An Epic spokesperson said Particle’s claims are “baseless” and the lawsuit is an attempt to divert attention from Particle’s “unlawful actions” on the Carequality health information exchange network. The spokesperson said the company would defend itself against the claims.

Particle’s latest move expands upon its feud with Epic. 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. 

An Epic spokesperson said at the time it shut off access at the request of its customers because of concerns over potential misuse of protected health information by Particle's customers. 

The startup disputes this claim. Within the suit, it 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. 

In the lawsuit, Particle alleges its revenue growth had fallen significantly.

In 2019, Epic started courting payer customers with the launch of its Payer Platform, which allows payers to access data from EHRs. The company's aims to help insurers use clinical data from Epic to process claims, automate the flow of data and reduce the number of provider uploads of patient information.

Carequality did not respond to a request for comment.