Next PBJ Deadline is Feb. 14th

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) intends to begin using the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) data to calculate and report staffing levels, tenure, and turnover measures in 2018. Although at this point the 5-Star system continues to rely on staffing data collected on form CMS-671 at the time of a facility’s survey, it is becoming increasingly important for members to ensure that their PBJ submissions accurately reflect facility staffing and that they are uploaded on time.

We remind members that CMS has developed a method for facilities to link old employee identifiers with new ones to enable tracking of each unique employee in cases where employee identifiers may have changed. This process is described in a September 2017 update to the PBJ Policy Manual, available here. The last update to the PBJ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document included information on how daily census is calculated from the MDS and how and when CMS updates the PBJ reporting icon that appears on the Nursing Home Compare website. The FAQs are available here. CMS posts PBJ documents and updates in the “What’s New” and “Downloads” section of the PBJ web page.

Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841