Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) Submission Deadline Reminder

Staffing data from July 1-September 30 must be submitted no later than 45 days from the end of the quarter. The final submission deadline for this quarter is November. Only data successfully submitted by the deadline is considered timely and used on the Nursing Home Compare website and in the five-star rating calculations. Once a facility uploads its data file, it needs to check the final Validation Report, which can be accessed in the Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reporting (CASPER) folder, to verify that the data was successfully submitted.

It may take up to 24 hours to receive the validation report, so providers must allow for time to correct any errors and resubmit if necessary. Please note that the final validation report only confirms that data was submitted successfully. It does not confirm that the data submitted is accurate or complete. If the final validation has not been received within 24 hours, facilities should run the Final File Validation Report This will indicate whether or not the files were processed successfully. Providers can also contact the QIES helpdesk for assistance by emailing help@qtso.com. Providers should not wait until the last few days before the deadline to submit their PBJ data. 

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will continue to provide technical assistance to nursing homes to improve their staffing and data submissions. Facilities should review their monthly Provider Preview in their Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reports (CASPER) folder for feedback on their most recent submission. CMS also strongly recommends that nursing homes run the following CASPER reports to review the accuracy and completeness of the data that they have entered: 1700D Employee Report, 1702D Individual Daily Staffing Report, and/or 1702S Staffing Summary Report. In addition, facilities should be running the MDS Census reports that are also available in CASPER to verify that their census is accurate. All of these reports should be run leaving enough time to review and correct any discrepancies before the submission deadline has passed.

Policy questions should be sent to NHStaffing@cms.hhs.gov.

Technical issues/questions should be sent to NursingHomePBJTechIssues@cms.hhs.gov.

Information also is available on the PBJ website.