CMS published new specifications October 1 for the refined Home Health Discharge to Community measure. It will now use Medicare Advantage encounter records alongside Medicare fee-for-service claims. A successful discharge means no potentially preventable hospitalization or observation stay during home health or one day after discharge—and no unplanned hospital or LTCH admission, SNF stay, or death during the next 31 days. CMS says the public-reporting timeline will come later.

DomAfina’s take: don’t wait for the display date. Build a 31-day post-discharge watchlist now. Separate MA from FFS, verify plan and encounter data, assign an owner to every alert, and reconcile hospital, observation and SNF events to the original episode. Then audit the failures: Was the handoff late? Medication list wrong? Follow-up missed? The score will expose what happens after the last visit—not only what was documented before it.

Source reviewed: CMS: Home Health Discharge to Community Measure Technical Specifications. The source supports the reported update; the operational recommendations are DomAfina’s analysis.