Practice Fusion pioneered the "free EHR" model sustained by data monetization. Patient Fusion users should understand their health data has historically been a revenue source through pharmaceutical advertising, research data sales, and analytics products. The DOJ settlement addressed some practices, but the underlying business model remains data-dependent.
| Data Type | Collected | Shared | Sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical Records | Yes | Veradigm Network | De-identified to pharma |
| Prescription Data | Yes | Data Aggregators | Yes (historically) |
| Diagnoses | Yes | Research Partners | De-identified |
| Clinical Decisions | Yes | Analytics Products | Used for advertising targeting |
| Provider Interactions | Yes | Quality Metrics | No |
When providers pay nothing for EHR software, patient data becomes the revenue source. Practice Fusion has sold de-identified data to pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and advertisers.
The DOJ settlement revealed that pharmaceutical companies paid Practice Fusion to influence prescribing through clinical alerts. While this specific practice stopped, pharma data relationships continue.
Practice Fusion is now part of Veradigm (formerly Allscripts), which operates extensive health data businesses. Your data may flow through multiple Veradigm products and partners.
The full scope of data partnerships and monetization is not clearly disclosed to patients. You may not know how your de-identified data is being used commercially.
How free EHR generates revenue from your data: