Dive Brief:
- A former quality assurance employee at EMR giant Epic Systems has filed a class-action suit against the vendor, arguing that the company violated labor laws by denying eligible workers over time pay for extra hours worked.
- The suit alleges that the QA employee, plus up to 1,000 other former and present QA workers, should have earned time-and-a-half pay for overtime hours worked over the three years preceding the filing of the action.
- In a statement, Epic officials said that employees who primarily test software are appropriately classified as salaried professionals, which makes its conduct legal and fair.
Dive Insight:
Epic is a dominant player in the EMR world, with more current and planned installations under way than the next two competitors (Cerner and Meditech). With its hands as full as they are, the last thing it needs is the distraction of what will inevitably be a nasty battle, plus damage to its reputation as an employer. Even if Epic is right in its contentions, it probably makes sense to settle this in some way and move on.