SNFs often turn to their payroll providers for support in the daily tracking of staff hours. Many national and regional payroll companies provide not just payroll processing, but can add software for timekeeping, scheduling and report generation.
Some SNF's find a time tracking or scheduling software they like and buy it directly, and require their payroll processors to work with data from their preferred software.
With a nursing shortage, its common to find SNF's using contract labor from staffing agencies to supplement their hired staff.
Because PBJ reporting can be complex, a number of experienced consultants have built practices around supporting PBJ reporting for SNFs.
Finally, a small set of software companies have created tools and utilities to simplify and automate PBJ reporting.
Effective PBJ reporting starts with accurate tracking of daily hours for both staff & external contractors. Ensuring accurate time tracking of all internal staff and external contractors providing patient care is often a critical failure point in SNFs underreporting PBJ hours.
The payroll providers, timekeeping systems and scheduling software that apply PBJ rules & produce the XML file required by CMS are categorized with these tags.
👪 Track hours
💾 Create XML file
Despite its name, PBJ reported hours are not payroll based. PBJ rules requiring the "midnight split" plus mandatory lunch break rules guarantee that payroll hours and PBJ hours are similar, but not always identical. Not understanding the intricacies of PBJ rules leads to errors in reporting.
In addition, compliance & turnover rules are difficult to monitor alongside normal scheduling and payroll functions as they require many months of data and complex formulas.
Staffing Five Star ratings combine staffing hours (from PBJ) with acuity tracking measures (from patient records). To forecast upcoming CMS ratings, one must understand how CMS processes both the staffing and clinical data.
PBJ utilities seek to simplify and automate staffing compliance functions. They support cleaning PBJ data prior to submission and / or predicting the future staffing Five Star rating that CMS will publish.
🚫 Check data errors
💾 Create XML files
⭐ Predict Five Star
Some PBJ utilities directly interface with CMS, offering a higher level of automation and accuracy.
📄 Get CASPER reports
🚀 Submit to CMS
Consultants can be used to supplement internal staff to ensure your PBJ data is compliant and as complete as possible. With their expertise they may offer a more efficient process to compile data, process and prepare it, and submit it to CMS. They may have these tags applied:
🚫 Check data errors
⭐ Predict Five Star
🚀 Submit to CMS
With an understanding of the PBJ methodology, SNFs can gain visibility to what level of staffing can lead to a desired Five Star rating.
Conversely, certain levels of RN staffing must be maintained daily per CMS rules.
Staffing agencies are numerous and able to supplement internal employees. Some agencies simplify tracking and reporting of PBJ hours and are listed with these tags .
👪 Track hours
💾 Create XML file
To view the PBJ Vendor Directory, create a free account on our PBJ Circle member hub.
