Techniques for access terminal radio link monitoring on a shared communication medium are disclosed. In an aspect, an access terminal detects a missed reference signal event associated with a radio link established on the shared communication medium, wherein detecting the missed reference signal event comprises determining that the access terminal did not detect a reference signal for measuring a quality of the radio link transmitted during a reference signal configuration window, assigns an error metric to the missed reference signal event based on reference signal monitoring capabilities of the access terminal, and triggers a radio link failure based on the assigned error metric. In an aspect, the missed reference signal event may be a missed Discovery Reference Signaling (DRS) event, the error metric may be a Block Error Rate (BLER) weight, and the reference signal for measuring the quality of the radio link comprises a Cell-specific Reference Signal (CRS).