Epic is getting so big that the company needs to be cognizant of antitrust issues, experts told Isthmus for a Sept. 5 story.
The EHR vendor covered more than half of U.S. acute care hospital beds for the first time in 2023, while growing its hospital market share lead to 39.1%, according to KLAS Research (Oracle Health was second, with 23.1%). The company also welcomed 19 new health system clients Aug. 20 at its annual Users Group Meeting in Verona, Wis.
Peter Carstensen, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who specializes in antitrust, told Isthmus there is a "risk" that Epic could face an antitrust lawsuit but called it unlikely.
"These monopoly cases are very costly and time-consuming," he told the Madison, Wis., newspaper. "That is why unless Epic does something really egregious, I would not expect to see much government action until some of the current big-ticket cases are resolved."
While Epic didn't respond to the news outlet's questions on the antitrust concerns — Becker's reached out to the company as well — the EHR vendor noted that its goal in launching so many new products is to simplify the work of healthcare providers, "not to open new revenue streams." The healthcare software giant's revenue rose to $4.9 billion in 2023, up from $3.2 billion four years earlier.
Brendan Keeler, a Portland, Ore., tech executive and former Epic staffer who blogs about health IT, told Isthmus that "network effects" — where a product exponentially increases in value as more people use it — and "moats" — a product's embedded competitive advantages — benefit huge tech companies like Epic and could draw government interest.
"They're smart, and my guess is that they will handle it properly," he told the publication, referring to Epic. "But their risk is still there."