How Proliant Takes Care of Your Payroll-Based Journal Reporting

Most companies will struggle, or just not offer, Payroll-Based Journal reporting, but what exactly is PBJ?

PBJ deals with information on staff working direct care at long term care facilities and is mandated under Section 6106 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This includes both agency and contract staff. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) defines “direct care staff” as:

Anyone that uses interpersonal contact or is involved in residential care management to provide care and services that allows the recipients to attain or maintain the highest achievable mental, physical, and psychological health and well-being.

PBJ reports seek to bring a higher level of accuracy, transparency, and validation to the direct care industry.

Once a company has completed PBJ registration there are several pieces of information to gather on the affected employees:

• Unique Employee ID
• Hire date
• Termination date
• Pay type code
  • Non-exempt
  • Exempt
  • Contract

For direct care workers the following is also required:

• Work day and date
• Job category code
• Job title code
• Hours worked per day/date

If a contractor or individual is paid directly by Medicare, those hours cannot be reported in the PBJ report.

The data collected through the PBJ reports go towards creating the 5 Star Rating system for direct care provider facilities. Said facilities are graded on:

• Health inspections – physical facility inspections
• Staffing – based on the PBJ data submitted to the CMS system
• Quality measures – based on a select set of clinical data
• Overall rating – based on the results of the above

Additionally the PBJ reports also record Census data. At the end of each month each direct care facility must submit the number of residents whose primary payer is any of the following:

• Medicaid
• Medicare
• Other: neither Medicaid or Medicare

Now that it’s been defined, what exactly about PBJ reporting is so intimidating to companies?

It all comes down to accuracy. Direct care companies need to ensure that every hour an employee spends working is recorded and submitted. Failure to do so could impact their 5 star Rating and therefore the reputation of their business as a whole.