UpToDate vs Vera Health (2026)
Both answer clinical questions with citations, and they start from different places. UpToDate starts from its own edited reference, written by more than 7,600 physician authors and editors, and its Expert AI answers only from that content. Vera Health starts from the literature. It searches a corpus it gives as more than 60 million peer reviewed papers, guidelines and care pathways, ranks what is relevant, applies evidence grading logic, and then writes a short answer with citations tied to specific statements. It is free to verified clinicians and trainees. UpToDate offers an answer its editors have already weighed; Vera offers a fresh search of the evidence, graded as it goes, at no cost to the clinician.
- Answers from an edited reference written by more than 7,600 physician authors and editors.
- Expert AI, grounded only in UpToDate's own content.
- Subscriptions for individuals and trainees, with enterprise terms quoted.
- Retrieval first search over a corpus it gives as more than 60 million papers, guidelines and care pathways.
- Evidence grading applied before a short answer with citations tied to each statement.
- Free, unlimited use for verified clinicians and trainees.
This comparison is published by AI Health Index, an independent research platform that compares healthcare AI vendors objectively. UpToDate and Vera Health are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials and the regulatory record, under the AI Health Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fact | UpToDate | Vera Health |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Clinical Reference & Evidence | Clinical Reference & Evidence |
| Headquarters | Waltham, Massachusetts | San Francisco, California |
| Website | wolterskluwer.com | verahealth.ai |
Side by Side
Select any grade to read the note behind it.
Product updates
The latest logged changes from each vendor, newest first, each linked to its source.
UpToDate
-
Pricing / packaging
UpToDate Expert AI's iOS app version 2.5.0 is now available as a 14 day free trial, up from the 7 day trial added in August, and the listing shows an in app personal subscription at $89.
Source -
Product / capability
Wolters Kluwer expanded its generative AI solution, UpToDate Expert AI, by integrating comprehensive medication data from UpToDate Lexidrug.
Source
Vera Health
-
Clinical evidence
Vera Health ran 100 questions from the public Real-POCQi dataset of real physician questions through Vera and three frontier models, and reused the study's published answers from OpenEvidence and GPT-5.5.
Source -
Safety / governance
Vera Health described how it governs answer quality.
Source
Each vendor in one paragraph
Written to be quoted whole. Each paragraph opens the AI Health Index profile of the vendor: what the product is, who buys it and what it does.
Clinical reference and decision support published by Wolters Kluwer Health and in market for more than thirty years, with content curated by over 7,600 physician authors and editors and reported use by more than three million clinicians across thousands of hospitals worldwide.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Clinical evidence search engine for licensed clinicians, operated by Veracity-Health Inc., a Delaware corporation with a San Francisco address, and free to verified clinicians and trainees with unlimited searches. The product is built retrieval first, which the company describes as the reverse of assistants that generate first.
Source: AI Health Index, September 2026
Questions buyers ask
How do UpToDate and Vera Health work with the EHR?
For UpToDate, patient education material is offered in up to nineteen languages, which is a real interoperability property in a multilingual health system. The company's release of 3 June 2026 states that more than half of United States Enterprise Edition customers, approximately 2,000 hospitals, had signed up for the Expert AI version by 30 April 2026, so the generative layer is reaching the chart through the same route.
With Vera Health, the company's home page, FAQ, privacy policy and business associate agreement name no record system, marketplace listing, FHIR or HL7 conformance, or public API, and make no integration claim. The product is delivered on the web and as mobile apps and is used alongside the record rather than inside it; the privacy policy mentions third party integrations only in general terms. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How are UpToDate and Vera Health priced and sold?
In UpToDate's case, enterprise pricing, which is what a health system buys and the tier that reaches most clinicians, is gated behind a sales conversation.
The FAQ states that Vera is free for licensed clinicians and trainees, with unlimited searches and ongoing updates at no charge, on signing up with professional credentials. A clinician can see the full cost of the product they will use, and start, without speaking to anyone. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
How do UpToDate and Vera Health handle patient data?
The terms of use state that UpToDate and its licensors are not intended to receive, transmit, store or process protected health information under HIPAA, which places the product outside the patient data relationship by contract.
In Vera Health's case, the privacy policy (last updated 15 July 2026) states that personal data is not used to train the company's AI systems, and commits to data minimization with encryption, access controls and anonymization or pseudonymization for data used in training. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Which settings and specialties do UpToDate and Vera Health cover?
For UpToDate, the trainee and medical university segments are substantial, and continuing medical education accrues inside the AI product, so the product serves workforce and training as well.
With Vera Health, the corpus is given as more than 60 million papers, guidelines and care pathways, with calculators, differential diagnosis and treatment plan views, and the home page's example questions span endocrinology, family medicine, oncology and emergency medicine. From the AI Health Index, drawn from each vendor's own published materials and the regulatory record, verified September 29, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Clinical Reference & Evidence page.
Both records were reviewed on this site in September 2026. Vera Health is free to verified clinicians and trainees; UpToDate is sold by subscription.
Ask both how they show a reader the strength of the evidence behind each statement.