diff --git a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/health_check.py b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/health_check.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..11ec4176e3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/health_check.py
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+#  SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2025 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved.
+#  SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+"""
+sglang-specific health check configuration.
+
+This module defines the default health check payload for sglang backends.
+"""
+
+from dynamo.health_check import HealthCheckPayload
+
+
+class SglangHealthCheckPayload(HealthCheckPayload):
+    """
+    sglang-specific health check payload.
+
+    Provides sglang defaults and inherits environment override support from base class.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self):
+        """
+        Initialize sglang health check payload with sglang-specific defaults.
+
+        The format matches what DecodeWorkerHandler expects from the frontend.
+        """
+        self.default_payload = {
+            "token_ids": [1],  # Single token for minimal processing
+            "stop_conditions": {
+                "max_tokens": 1,  # Generate only 1 token
+                "ignore_eos": False,
+            },
+            "sampling_options": {
+                "temperature": 0.0,
+                "top_p": 1.0,
+                "top_k": -1,
+            },
+            "eos_token_ids": [],
+            "annotations": [],
+        }
+        super().__init__()
+
+
+class SglangPrefillHealthCheckPayload(HealthCheckPayload):
+    """
+    SGLang-specific health check payload for prefill workers in disaggregated mode.
+
+    The prefill handler expects a wrapped structure with 'request' and 'sampling_params'.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self):
+        """
+        Initialize SGLang prefill health check payload with proper wrapped structure.
+        """
+        self.default_payload = {
+            "request": {
+                "token_ids": [1],  # Single token for minimal processing
+            },
+            "sampling_params": {
+                "max_new_tokens": 1,  # Generate only 1 token
+                "temperature": 0.0,
+                "top_p": 1.0,
+                "top_k": -1,
+                "ignore_eos": False,
+            },
+        }
+        super().__init__()
diff --git a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/main.py b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/main.py
index f27cfe0efe..7dd0ad9cd1 100644
--- a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/main.py
+++ b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/main.py
@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@
 from dynamo.runtime import DistributedRuntime, dynamo_worker
 from dynamo.runtime.logging import configure_dynamo_logging
 from dynamo.sglang.args import Config, DisaggregationMode, parse_args
+from dynamo.sglang.health_check import (
+    SglangHealthCheckPayload,
+    SglangPrefillHealthCheckPayload,
+)
 from dynamo.sglang.publisher import setup_sgl_metrics
 from dynamo.sglang.register import register_llm_with_runtime_config
 from dynamo.sglang.request_handlers import DecodeWorkerHandler, PrefillWorkerHandler
@@ -112,6 +116,8 @@ async def register_model():
         ready_event.set()
         logging.info("Model registration succeeded; processing queued requests")
 
+    health_check_payload = SglangHealthCheckPayload().to_dict()
+
     try:
         # Start endpoint immediately and register model concurrently
         # Requests queue until ready_event is set
@@ -120,6 +126,7 @@ async def register_model():
                 handler.generate,
                 graceful_shutdown=True,
                 metrics_labels=metrics_labels,
+                health_check_payload=health_check_payload,
             ),
             register_model(),
         )
@@ -150,11 +157,14 @@ async def init_prefill(runtime: DistributedRuntime, config: Config):
 
     handler = PrefillWorkerHandler(component, engine, config)
 
+    health_check_payload = SglangPrefillHealthCheckPayload().to_dict()
+
     tasks = [
         generate_endpoint.serve_endpoint(
             handler.generate,
             graceful_shutdown=True,
             metrics_labels=[("model", server_args.served_model_name)],
+            health_check_payload=health_check_payload,
         )
     ]
 
diff --git a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/decode_handler.py b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/decode_handler.py
index 634af32a8d..4089c6e90b 100644
--- a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/decode_handler.py
+++ b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/decode_handler.py
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ def _build_sampling_params(self, request: dict) -> dict:
             sampling_params["ignore_eos"] = request["stop_conditions"]["ignore_eos"]
         return sampling_params
 
-    async def generate(self, request: str):
+    async def generate(self, request: dict):
         sampling_params = self._build_sampling_params(request)
 
         if self.serving_mode == DisaggregationMode.DECODE:
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ async def generate(self, request: str):
                 DisaggPreprocessedRequest(
                     request=request,
                     sampling_params=sampling_params,
-                ).model_dump_json()
+                ).model_dump()
             )
 
             bootstrap_info = None
diff --git a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/prefill_handler.py b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/prefill_handler.py
index 21e34f578b..b28cf1b208 100644
--- a/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/prefill_handler.py
+++ b/components/backends/sglang/src/dynamo/sglang/request_handlers/prefill_handler.py
@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@
 import random
 import socket
 
-import msgspec
 import sglang as sgl
 from sglang.srt.utils import get_ip
 
@@ -46,8 +45,7 @@ def _get_bootstrap_info(self):
 
         return bootstrap_host, bootstrap_port
 
-    async def generate(self, request: str):
-        req = msgspec.json.decode(request, type=dict)
+    async def generate(self, request: dict):
         bootstrap_room = self._generate_bootstrap_room()
 
         bootstrap_info = {
@@ -59,8 +57,8 @@ async def generate(self, request: str):
         yield bootstrap_info
 
         results = await self.engine.async_generate(
-            input_ids=req["request"]["token_ids"],
-            sampling_params=req["sampling_params"],
+            input_ids=request["request"]["token_ids"],
+            sampling_params=request["sampling_params"],
             stream=True,
             bootstrap_host=self.bootstrap_host,
             bootstrap_port=self.bootstrap_port,