Uniform Data System (UDS)

Key facts

Maintained by

HRSA Bureau of Primary Health Care

Who reports

Health Center Program awardees and look-alikes

Reporting period

Calendar year, regardless of the health center fiscal year

Due date

February 15 of the year after the reporting year

Published as

National, state and health center level data from HRSA

What is the Uniform Data System?

The Uniform Data System is the reporting system the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) uses to monitor the Health Center Program. Every funded health center and look-alike reports the same set of tables for the full calendar year, even if its fiscal year or grant period differs.

Reports are due February 15. HRSA reviewers then work with health centers to correct errors before the data is finalized and published later in the year.

What the UDS collects

UDS tables cover:

• Patient characteristics: age, sex, race and ethnicity, language, income as a percentage of the federal poverty guidelines, and insurance source.
• Services and staffing: full-time-equivalent staff and visits by discipline, from physicians to enabling services staff.
• Selected diagnoses and services: visit and patient counts for key conditions and procedures.
• Clinical quality measures: screening, chronic disease control and preventive care measures.
• Finances: costs by service category and revenue by payer, including grants.

Why UDS data matters

The UDS is the most complete, comparable public dataset on Federally Qualified Health Centers. Market access teams use payer mix and patient counts to size 340B and Medicaid populations. Consultants and private equity analysts use cost and revenue tables to benchmark health center finances. Policy analysts use quality measures to compare outcomes across states and health center types. Because every health center reports under the same definitions, the data also supports tracking one organization over several years.

Limitations of UDS data

UDS data is reported at the organization level, not by individual clinic site, so a multi-site health center appears as one set of totals. Most measures are aggregate counts rather than patient-level records, which limits linkage to other datasets. HRSA is modernizing the system, including a de-identified patient-level submission known as UDS+, so table definitions can change between years and should be checked before building trends.