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Welcome to the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) Website

The Medicare HOS was the first patient-reported outcomes measure used in Medicare managed care. The goal of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) HOS program is to gather valid and reliable clinically meaningful data that have many uses, such as targeting quality improvement activities and resources; monitoring health plan performance and rewarding top-performing health plans; helping people with Medicare make informed health care choices; and advancing the science of functional health outcomes measurement. Managed care plans with Medicare Advantage (MA) contracts must participate.

Each year a random sample of people with Medicare is drawn and surveyed from each participating Medicare Advantage Organization (MAO) that has a minimum of 500 enrollees (i.e., a survey is administered to a different baseline cohort, or group, each year). Two years later, the baseline respondents are surveyed again (i.e., follow up measurement). Cohort 1 was surveyed in 1998 and was resurveyed in 2000. During the current HOS administration (2025 Round 28), Cohort 28 is being surveyed and Cohort 26 is being resurveyed using HOS 3.0. For data collection years 1998-2006, the standard MAO baseline sample size was one thousand. In 2007, the standard sample size was increased to twelve hundred. Since 2019, MAOs can request oversampling if the contract's enrollment permits a sample size larger than the standard sample of 1,200.

Information for People with Medicare and their Families

If you have questions or concerns about the HOS or HOS-Modified (HOS-M), you may contact CMS at 1-800-MEDICARE or the survey organization CMS is working with directly. More information about the survey, including contact information for CMS and each survey vendor, is available under the Information for People with Medicare and Their Families page.

What's New on the Medicare HOS

• 2026 Medicare HOS and HOS-M Approved Survey Vendor Lists Available. The lists of approved survey vendors are posted under the HOS Survey Vendors and the HOS-M Survey Vendors sections. Final approval of the survey vendors is contingent on successfully completing the survey vendor training in March 2026.
  
  
• HOS and HOS-M Fully Integrated Dual Eligible (FIDE) Special Needs Plans (SNPs) Participation for Frailty Memo. The memo was released on February 6, 2026, detailing the application process and requirements for participation in the 2026 HOS and HOS-M to support the calculation of frailty scores for 2027 payments. The memo is posted under the Survey Administration section.
  
  
• Cohort 27 Baseline Public Use File (PUF) and Data Users Guide (DUG) Available. The PUF may be downloaded from the Research Data Files section on the Data page. The corresponding DUG may be downloaded from the Data Users Guides section.
  
  
• Health Plan Management System (HPMS) Memo announcing availability of Reports, Data and accompanying DUG Posted. The HPMS memo dated November 3, 2025, announces the availability of 2024 Cohort 27 Baseline Reports, 2024 HOS-M Reports, the distribution of these reports and the HOS-M data to the participating MAOs. The data will be distributed via electronic secure file transfer.
  
  
• 2024 HOS-M Data Available. The HOS-M data and DUG were made available for plans to request following the CMS announcement to HPMS users on November 3, 2025. Participating Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) organizations may obtain their data by contacting Medicare HOS Information and Technical Support at hos@hsag.com. The DUG may also be downloaded from the HOS-Modified page.
  
  
• 2024 HOS-M Reports Available. These reports were made available to participating PACE organizations via HPMS on November 3, 2025. Plans may contact their CMS Quality Point of Contact to obtain access to the reports. A Sample PACE Report with actual national HOS-M data is available under the Sample Reports section.
  
  
• 2024 Cohort 27 Baseline Reports Available. The reports were made available to participating MAOs via HPMS on November 3, 2025. MAOs may contact their CMS Quality Point of Contact to obtain access to the reports and the contract-level summary data. If assistance is required regarding HPMS access, MAOs may contact CMS at hpms_access@cms.hhs.gov. A Sample Baseline Report with actual national HOS data is available under the Sample Reports section.
  
  

For additional information about the availability of auxiliary aids and services, please visit the CMS Accessibility & Nondiscrimination for Individuals with Disabilities Notice.

This page was last modified on 03/03/2026