Payroll-Based Journal—Don’t let the Deadline Pass You By

Believe it or not, calendar Q3 (federal government Q4) has come to an end. It’s now October and you can officially submit all of your PBJ data from the previous quarter.

If it seems like we’ve been talking about PBJ for more than a year, that’s because we have. From the beginning, OnShift has been tracking PBJ developments and working with providers to help them understand what PBJ is, why it’s important and what they need to do to be successful.

I’m not sure how many other ways I can say it (and you might be tired of hearing it) --but now is the time to act.

We’re in the home stretch, yet some providers have not even started the process for reporting their direct care staffing hours to CMS. There are skilled nursing communities that have yet to register in the PBJ system. If you’ve done nothing in regard to PBJ, that is where you should start.

Remember that CMS expects every skilled nursing facility to submit PBJ data for the period of July 1 through September 30. I can assure you—the deadline will not be extended and all skilled nursing facilities must submit data by November 14^th in order to avoid penalties.

In an article from McKnight’s, Lorelei Chapman, with CMS' Division of Nursing Homes, Survey & Certification Group, said, “We are not expecting data to be perfect. However, we do expect all facilities to submit data by the deadline.”

If you submit after the deadline, that data will not be considered timely, and that’s when you run into problems.

A Few Reminders

1. If you need a quick refresher on what data you must submit, here it is. You must report the following:
   • Direct care hours—According to CMS, “Direct Care Staff are those individuals who, through interpersonal contact with residents or resident care management, provide care and services to allow residents to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being. Direct care staff does not include individuals whose primary duty is maintaining the physical environment of the long term care facility (for example, housekeeping).” CMS has defined 35 job codes for you to use when reporting direct care hours.
   • Employee turnover and tenure data- You must supply CMS with hire and termination dates for all direct care employees, including contract and agency staff.
   • Census information-When submitting PBJ data, you are required to report census information for the last day of each month.
2. It’s critical that you fully understand what is required of your organization and report your data as accurately as possible, because in the near future PBJ will be used to calculate the staffing portion of your Five-Star Quality Rating.
3. OnShift has a few resources available for those that need some additional help. View our whitepaper that breaks down the process of preparing for PBJ into 5 easy steps. Learn PBJ best practices from senior care industry experts in our webinar. And our customers are already having success with submitting PBJ data to CMS. Learn how with a demo of our PBJ Reporting software.