PBJ Celebrates Mother’s Day with May 15th Submission Deadline
After commemorating Valentine’s Day with a submission deadline, the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) reporting schedule is set to celebrate moms everywhere by requiring that payroll data for the first quarter of calendar year 2023 be finalized by the Monday after Mother’s Day. With that in mind, now is a good time to ensure that your organization is positioned for a complete and accurate submission. Nursing homes must finalize PBJ data covering Jan. 1st through March 31, 2023 by May 15th. Even ignoring the promise from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of a federal staffing proposal, these data are now increasingly being used for existing and proposed quality reporting and Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) measures, making timely, accurate submissions even more important. The fact that the State’s nursing staffing levels rely on the submitted hours only increases their importance.
Only data that are successfully submitted by the deadline are accepted, and inaccurate or missing submissions can result in a home being assigned a single star for the staffing domain for one quarter. Missing data could also result in non-compliance with State staffing level requirements.
The PBJ Policy Manual, updated in June 2022 along with related resources including a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), are available for download at the bottom of the dedicated CMS PBJ webpage here. Providers may enter data once per quarter or as often as they like, but must have their quarterly submission finalized on or before the May 15th due date. Note that while the Minimum Data Set (MDS) submission process has migrated to the Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System (iQIES), PBJ reporting remains unchanged.
CMS recommends that providers take advantage of the data verification resources after upload to ensure a successful submission.
Once the data are uploaded, the user should:
- Check the My Submissions page to verify the status of the submitted file.
- Check the Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reporting (CASPER) application for a system-generated PBJ Final File Validation Report (FFVR) within 24 hours. If no FFVR appears, run a PBJ Submitter FFVR to check your file for errors.
- Run the PBJ 1700D (Employee), 1702D (by Employer), 1703D (by Job Type), 1702S Staffing Summary, and MDS Census Reports to verify that the submitted quarterly PBJ data accurately reflect your records.
Information from CMS describing the various PBJ reports providers may access, including general and detailed MDS census reports, is available here. Providers are urged to submit data and run and review the various reports with sufficient time to make any necessary corrections prior to the final due date. Please pay special attention to the daily census counts in the report to ensure that they are accurate.
Contact: Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8841