Update, August 21, 2026: CMS publicly released July 2026 Care Compare scores on August 14. This covers all affected measures except Hybrid Hospital-Wide Readmission. That measure is suppressed until the October/November 2026 release. Yesterday, CMS released another revision of the EDAC files that they claim resolve the remaining outstanding report discrepancies.
Last month we flagged five data integrity issues in the July 2026 Care Compare preview files (read the original post). The official preview window closed nearly a month ago, but CMS didn’t release the refreshed files until this past Monday, and several of the original problems are resolved: Medicare Advantage patients now appear correctly, the full three-year COPD mortality period is present, and mortality/EDAC denominators reconcile.
But a closer review of these refreshed files, released well after the preview window closed, turned up four new discrepancies. Hospitals are effectively being asked to trust scores they still cannot validate. Here’s what your team needs to check right now.
What We’re Seeing in the Refreshed Files
1. EDAC: Returning-Patient Counts Don’t Reconcile
For AMI, Heart Failure, and Pneumonia, the hospital-level EDAC score reports show more returning patients than the patient-level files support, in some cases nearly double. Either the return indicator is misclassified at the patient level, or the EDAC score itself is inflated. Prior years reconciled fully across all three cohorts; this is new.
2. Mortality Comorbidity Files: Missing Discharges, Blank Values
For Stroke and COPD, the comorbidity benchmarking files show fewer eligible discharges than the patient-level and hospital-level files (which agree with each other). On top of that, most COPD comorbidity values are blank placeholders, making it difficult to assess comorbidity burden even for the discharges that are included.
3. Hospital-Wide Mortality Hybrid File: Deaths Appear Undercounted
The hybrid mortality measure shows an observed rate of 0.0% at the hospital, state, and national level. Nationally, the file reports roughly 1,900 deaths against a denominator of nearly 5 million, compared to the claims-only version of the same measure, which shows over 274,000 deaths. That gap is too large to be a anything but an error.
This matters. Your hospital’s score on this measure is calculated relative to the national average. If the national average is wrong, every hospital’s score, and the star ratings built on top of it, are being calculated against a flawed benchmark. This isn’t a one-hospital data quality issue. It’s a scoring integrity issue for the entire program.
4. Readmissions Comorbidity File: Outdated Risk Variables
For CABG and elective hip/knee replacement, the procedures comorbidity file appears to be using risk variables from the prior HCC model rather than the current one. This contradicts the methodology published on QualityNet. Most comorbidity values in this file are blank as a result.
What to Do Now
The preview window closed weeks ago, but CMS only just gave hospitals something new to review. Submit an inquiry through the QualityNet Q&A Tool immediately and ask CMS to confirm whether additionally corrected files will be issued and whether hospitals will get a real chance to validate before these scores go public. Your public quality story depends on these reports being right.
Here’s the link to the QualityNet Q&A Tool: https://cmsqualitysupport.servicenowservices.com/qnet_qa?id=ask_a_question
CareKate Analytics is helping hospitals validate these files right now. If your team needs a second set of eyes, reach out directly at tom@carekate.com.
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