By January 2026, all certified electronic health records (EHRs) and health IT systems must support the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) Version 3. With future versions already reviewed and expanding, the pace of change is accelerating.
For EHR, point of care, and other Health IT vendors, this means more than just staying compliant—it means keeping up with evolving regulatory changes, updating code systems, and managing resource-intensive rollouts.
The cost of maintaining clinical data to meet regulatory and reimbursement requirements can strain team resources and stall innovation. For example, USCDI V3 requires both ICD-10-CM and SNOMED CT® codes to be used in the problem list but leaves out the transition from CMS-HCC V24 to V28—something your team might have to handle in a separate work stream.
Additionally, non-compliance with evolving code sets and interoperability requirements can expose you or your customers to information-blocking penalties—up to $1M per instance if found liable. With regards to USCDI, if a data class is mapped incorrectly or missing data, this could mean $1M per patient.
This is where IMO Health comes in. We simplify clinical data maintenance, ensure compliance, and keep you ahead with trusted clinical terminology used by all major EHRs.
The hidden cost of compliance: Clinical terminology
Standards-based code sets and terminology are at the core of regulatory complexity, including their ongoing maintenance in data sets.
USCDI requires a standardized set of health data classes—from allergies and medications to social determinants of health (SDOH) and lab results. Meeting those standards isn’t just about checking a box; your tech stack must accurately capture, extend, encode, maintain, and organize data using compliant terminology.
For many vendors, this means recurring manual work, such as:
- Mapping codes to new data elements
- Updating value sets
- Monitoring changes from HL7, ASTP, AMA®, ADA®, LOINC®, SNOMED, RxNorm® and many others
- Resolving discrepancies that arise during data exchanges between external entities and your systems
- Governing internal data operations for compliance
- Managing frequent code set updates across all USCDI domains
Without a maintained clinical terminology dictionary for USCDI, compliance updates become time-consuming and costly and divert focus from innovation.
Driving efficiency with IMO Health clinical terminology
IMO Health has been one of healthcare’s best-kept secrets for over 30 years, pioneering the clinical terminology that powers all major EHRs. Our team of clinical experts—physicians (many former hospital CIOs and CMIOs), registered nurses, lab scientists, pharmacists, and credentialed health information professionals specializing in coding and mapping—continuously curates and updates our clinical terminology.
We collaborate with end users, government working groups, and code set vendors to keep solutions current, helping customers reduce costs and simplify compliance. To help reduce maintenance costs, one of IMO Health’s primary focus areas is maintaining our clinical terminology content—so they don’t have to.
Here’s how we help:
Built-in support for USCDI V4 and beyond
Our July 2025 terminology release prepares you for the 2026 V3 deadline and ahead to 2028 (V4). It includes all required classes and metadata for HTI-2’s USCDI V4 regulation—exceeding standards across health tech, pharma, and health plans.
Automated updates, fewer manual workflows
IMO Health collaborates with regulatory groups and code set vendors to keep terminology current, freeing your team from managing multiple vendors for code set maintenance. All our solutions include a knowledge layer built on robust clinical terminology to support compliance requirements with USCDI and beyond.
Support for critical metadata and interoperability
From SDOH, allergies, labs, procedures, immunizations, and medication data—we make capturing, maintaining, and classifying the data USCDI requires behind the scenes seamless. IMO Health is also trusted by all major EHRs, which helps us ensure everyone is speaking the same language across systems.
Organized for compliance clarity
We maintain terminology using multiple vectors, including USCDI class, HRSN, value set IDs, and many more, making it easy to implement and maintain compliant content tailored to your business needs.
Lower costs, faster rollouts, fewer surprises
When your clinical terminology layer is built to evolve with regulatory changes, benefits include:
- Faster go-to-market with continuously updated terminology
- Added support for customer business-specific use cases outside of USCDI, like HCCs, to make sure you focus on what matters
- Fewer delays in certification and implementation
- Accelerated innovation with less room for risk
Relying on homegrown or tool-only terminology means maintaining dozens of versions of a single concept—like diabetes—across use cases. Every USCDI update could drive up maintenance costs and drain engineering resources. With IMO Health, you benefit from a proven, embedded, evolving clinical terminology layer.
Want to learn how IMO Health’s clinical terminology can lower maintenance costs and expedite regulatory compliance? Speak to one of our experts today.
SNOMED and SNOMED CT are registered trademarks of SNOMED International.
RxNorm® is a registered trademark of the National Library of Medicine.
