Texas AG Files Suit Against Epic Over Monopolization Claims

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Epic, alleging the health IT giant holds monopoly power in the electronic health record market. The lawsuit also claims Epic engages in deceptive conduct that limits parents’ access to their minor children’s medical records.

Epic commands a leading position in the EHR space, with its software used by over 40% of U.S. hospitals. More than 320 million patients reportedly have electronic health records stored on Epic’s platform.

According to the attorney general’s office, Epic employs a range of exclusionary practices designed to block competition from partners, customers and even current or former employees.

Paxton alleges in the lawsuit that Epic undermines hospitals’ capacity to control and deploy their own patient information within a broader effort to shut out rival software vendors, leading Texas patients to face poorer care when their chosen doctors rely on outdated or incomplete medical records during treatment encounters.

According to the complaint, the alleged anticompetitive conduct harms Texas hospitals and patients by driving up costs and shutting out creative technologies.

Paxton additionally says that Epic uses its control over health records to automatically restrict parents’ visibility into their children’s prescriptions, clinical documentation and communications with clinicians once a child reaches age 12. The attorney general’s office also said that such misleading actions interfere with parents’ essential authority to manage their children’s healthcare and breach Texas law, which guarantees parents full and unrestricted access to their children’s medical information.

Paxton stated that they will not permit progressive corporations to compromise parents’ fundamental rights to supervise and safeguard their children’s medical care. He added that the purpose of the lawsuit is to guarantee Texans easy access to medical records while promoting lower costs and greater creativity through a genuinely competitive electronic health records market.

An Epic spokesperson stated that Texas’s actions are incorrect and misplaced, stemming from a misunderstanding of both Epic’s business model and market position, as well as the significant contributions the company has made to the U.S. healthcare system, exemplified by products like MyChart, which so many Americans use daily. 

The spokesperson added that Epic helps improve care quality each month by providing providers with a comprehensive view of patients through over 725 million record exchanges – more than any other electronic health record vendor – with over half of these exchanges involving non-Epic systems. They further noted that health systems using Epic shared information with nearly 1,000 patient-facing apps two billion times in 2024, a number that speaks for itself. They also clarified that Epic doesn’t make any decisions regarding access of parents to childrens’ records – these are made by the healthcare professionals.

The legal action is part of a wider effort by Paxton to review whether electronic health record providers are following state regulations on parental access to medical information.

Earlier in 2025, the Texas Attorney General’s office reached a settlement with Austin Diagnostic Clinic, mandating full reinstatement of parental proxy access for children aged 12 to 17. The office has also sent civil investigative demands to other EHR vendors regarding parental access to minors’ health records.