Our hospital was under CMS validation. One of the charts requested was for the Safe Use of Opioids (CMS-506) eCQM. The patient qualified for the measure because he was an inpatient less than 120 days, was over 18 years old and was on a Scheduled II and III Opioid" medication at discharge. However, the discharge disposition was that the patient expired.  The eCQM outcome according to our vendor code was "excluded". The CMS validator indicated the patient should not have been in the measure population as there would be no opioids or benzodiazepines at discharge due to the discharge status.  I am seeking clarification on the measure algorithm. There is an exclusion for the discharge disposition of "patient expired". Why is this necessary if a patient that expired should not be in the measure population? Should we not be sending a QRDA file on expired patients? That is not how the measure reads so our vendor's code does produce a QRDA file for these patients.