Hospital Intelligence Brief
How to Read SPARCS Audit Reports and Compliance Dashboards
The Department publishes weekly audit reports and compliance dashboards that show what was accepted. They are the fastest way to see a problem, and they come with one important restriction.
Short answer
SPARCS publishes weekly audit reports, which count accepted discharge and visit records by month and claim type, and monthly compliance reports, which compare accepted records with the volume target. Both refresh weekly, but the Department warns they should not be used for public reporting of admission or visit counts.[1][2]
What reports does SPARCS publish?
Submitters often learn about a problem when a warning notice arrives. The reports that would have shown it weeks earlier are public and refreshed weekly, but they are easy to misread. The Department’s reports page describes two families. Audit Reports are organized by discharge year and claim type: inpatient, expanded outpatient, emergency department and ambulatory surgery. They summarize the number of discharge or visit claims accepted into the SPARCS data warehouse, by discharge month. Compliance Reports are produced monthly and compare the records submitted with the expected target.[1]
The compliance protocol presents the same two reports in a short table. The audit report is produced weekly and carries no volume target. The compliance report is monthly, and its volume target is 80 percent of the prior year’s monthly average submissions, or 75 percent in February and December.[2] The two are complementary: the audit report tells you what has been accepted so far, and the compliance report tells you how that compares with what is expected.
How often are the dashboards refreshed?
The reports page says the reports are updated weekly and displays the publication date on the dashboard selected for viewing.[1] The July 2026 submitter forum summary specifies that the compliance and audit dashboards refresh every Monday afternoon.[3] That timing suggests an obvious routine: schedule the weekly review for Tuesday morning, after a fresh Monday refresh, and have a named person own it.
The audit charts report the count of records loaded to the warehouse as of the publication date, so a file submitted late in the week may not appear until the following refresh.[3] A shortfall seen a day after a submission is therefore not necessarily a problem. A shortfall that persists across two refreshes usually is.
How do you read an audit report?
Start with the claim type and discharge month that matter, and compare the accepted count with the number of discharges or visits recorded in your own system. A difference could mean records that were never sent, records that were sent and rejected, or records accepted after the last refresh. The forum summary says that discrepancies in volume are almost always due to rejected records or newly accepted records not yet reflected in the weekly refresh.[3]
The audit reports also show the monthly compliance targets, which lets a facility track its status without waiting for the monthly compliance report.[2] Looking at the report by claim type matters because the targets are separate. A healthy inpatient line can coexist with an ambulatory surgery line that is falling behind.
A practical weekly habit is to keep a simple table with one row per claim type and month: records in your system, records accepted by SPARCS, the difference, and a note explaining it. Investigate any gap larger than a normal day’s activity. The sources do not recommend a tolerance, so a facility should set its own after observing a few months of normal differences.
What do these reports leave out?
The most important limit is stated plainly on the Department’s pages: the reports should not be used for public reporting of counts related to hospital inpatient, outpatient, emergency department and ambulatory surgery admissions or visits. For public counts by facility, users are directed to the SPARCS Data Access and Release site.[1] The reason is that the reports are management tools for compliance, not final data products. They show what has been accepted to date, not a validated and released count.
They also leave out anything that was rejected. The forum summary notes that records not accepted to the data warehouse are not reflected in the compliance dashboards or reconciliation reports.[3] And the program said additional resources, including a heatmap and reconciliation reports, were forthcoming on the reports page, so the set of reports may grow.[3]
What should you do when the numbers do not match?
Work through the likely causes in order. First, check the portal for rejected files and records, and correct and resubmit them. Second, confirm that the most recent submission has had time to appear after a Monday refresh. Third, check that your own system’s count uses the same definition of a claim type as SPARCS, since a classification change can move records between categories. The July 2026 change to revenue code 0361, for example, moved some outpatient claims into ambulatory surgery.[3]
If a gap persists after those checks, escalate it with specifics: the claim type, the months, the counts on each side, and what you have already ruled out. For compliance questions, use the SPARCS Intake and Compliance ticketing system. For technical questions about rejections, use the Optum Help Desk.[3]
Frequently asked questions
How often are SPARCS audit reports updated?
The reports page says they are updated weekly, and the July 2026 forum summary says the dashboards refresh every Monday afternoon.[1][3]
What is the difference between a SPARCS audit report and a compliance report?
The audit report counts claims accepted by month and claim type with no target; the compliance report compares records loaded with the expected volume target.[1][2]
Can I use SPARCS audit report counts in a public report?
No. The Department says these reports should not be used for public reporting of admission or visit counts and points users to its data access and release site.[1]
Why are our SPARCS counts lower than our own?
The program says discrepancies are almost always due to rejected records or newly accepted records not yet reflected in the weekly dashboard.[3]
What is the SPARCS compliance report target?
It is 80 percent of the prior year’s monthly average submissions, or 75 percent for February and December.[2]
What to do next
- Schedule a weekly review for the day after the Monday refresh.
- Compare accepted counts with your own system by claim type and month.
- Clear rejections before escalating a gap.
- Never quote these dashboards in public materials.
Explore Your Hospital’s Opportunities
Two Pillars can help hospital leadership investigate market, financial, operational and strategic questions using relevant organizational data, public information and a structured assessment process. A good first step is a SPARCS review that confirms your obligations, contacts and calendar, and sets up a simple routine your team can keep.
Sources
- New York State Department of Health, SPARCS Data Submission Compliance Reports. Accessed October 2026.
- New York State Department of Health, SPARCS Data Submission Compliance Protocol (Version 3.0, February 2024). Accessed October 2026.
- New York State Department of Health, SPARCS Quarterly Submitter Forum Summary, July 30, 2026. Accessed October 2026.
Sources checked October 2026. This guide is general information for healthcare leaders and is not legal, financial, clinical or compliance advice. Figures and rules are cited to the sources below and may have changed since they were accessed, so confirm anything you rely on against the current source. Two Pillars & Co is independent of the organizations cited. See our editorial policy.