CMS is asking a subset of nursing homes to participant in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid CMS Payroll Based Nursing Home Staffing Data Collection PBNHSDC Pilot. If you are willing to participate in the Pilot, we ask that you complete the attached Nursing home participation selection sheet where you identify the facilities that will be participating in the Pilot. We will use this spreadsheet to generate the welcome letters out to the participants. These letters will supply registration information to the individuals who will be responsible for submitting and approving the staffing data for your facility. There are two basic types of Nursing Home participants: (1) participants at the individual facility level and (2) participants at the organization level:

·  If you will be managing at the facility level then only the CMS Certification Numbers (CCNs) are necessary. We will then send a welcome letter to each of the Facilities.

·  If you will be managing the participating facilities at the organization level rather than at each individual facility level, then you will need to complete one or more "ORG" record types to designate the Organization Group Name(s) and the Mailing Address information. Please ensure the address is correct, since the address supplied here will be used in the mailing of the Registration letters instead of the Facility address. Then you will tie the CCNs associated with the Organization Group Name to the Organization Group Names.

Below is additional background on the purpose of the Pilot and your roles should you choose to participate, however if you have any additional question please do not hesitate to contact us. Contact information was supplied on the Email.

Why do we want collect Payroll Based Nursing Home Staffing Data?

As you are most probably aware, CMS has long identified staffing as one of the vital components of a nursing home’s ability to provide quality care. Overtime, CMS has utilized staffing data for a myriad of purposes in an effort to more accurately and effectively gauge its impact on the quality of care. Presently, staffing data is collected on the Form CMS-671, which is a part of the annual recertification process (recertification surveys occur on average about once a year). The data collected represents a snapshot of staffing levels at the facility for the pay period immediately preceding the date of the survey, normally representing a two-week period. CMS continues to look for ways to improve and better represent this data. As a result, requirements for a web based Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) system have been developed that will be used to gather nursing homes staffing data based upon payroll data (e.g. facility, employees, staffing and census data) from Nursing Home facilities on a quarterly basis. This new initiative makes changes to the current staffing data collection process that is not only vital for quality improvement; but it also supports compliance with the existing federal mandate.

What is the PBNHSDC Pilot?

The Pilot is a prototype and a scaled down version of what the agency expects nationally once the Payroll Based Journal system is put into production use. The Pilot is web-based and will provide the basic functionality of the PBJ system supporting up to 1000 participating facilities.

The Pilot will be implemented in phases as described below:

Phase 1 Registration - Organization / Participant sign-on and registration

Phase 2 Initial Data Submission – Organization / participant ‘Quarterly upload or manual data entry of staffing & census data’

Phase 3 Recurring Data Submission – Organization / participant recurring data submissions and ongoing user access support

What are your roles and responsibilities for the PBNHSDC Pilot?

Below is a table describing the roles required for each participant during the Pilot period:

Roles / Responsibility /
Nursing Home Administrator or other authorized personnel / ·  Identify the Submission Process Manager (SPM) who will be representing this facility, and provide that individual with this letter or a copy of this letter.
·  If this individual will also be serving as SPM for additional facilities participating in this Pilot, provide the SPM with the list of additional facilities that they will also be representing.
Nursing Home ‘NH’ Submission Process Manager – SPM – must be an employee / ·  Identify the Nursing Homes for which you will be responsible (as a SPM) – (Phase 1).
·  Registers and selects Data Steward(s) - (Phase 1)
·  Manages and maintains user access - (Phase 1).
·  Oversees and manages manual data collection procedure (Phase 2).
·  Reviews and approves submitted data that has been approved by their Data Steward(s) - (Phase 2).
·  Serves as primary supervisor for NHF interface with Pilot.
Nursing Home Data Steward – DS – must be an employee / ·  After assignment by SPM, registers in Pilot (Phase 1).
·  Posts quarterly NH staffing and related data (Phase 2).
·  Serves as primary facility contact for addressing and resolving identified errors in the upload data (Phase 2).
·  Gathers, submits, and approves facility data (Phase 2).
·  Serves as primary user of system interface application.

Note: Contractors can support this process, but cannot directly interface with the Pilot System

The first phase begins where Nursing Home Administrators or other authorized personnel are being asked to identify the Submission Process Managers (SPM) who will:

1)  Sign into the system and familiarize themselves with the website.

2)  Register their facility(s), and assign associated Data Steward(s).

In addition, the Data Steward(s), once identified & registered by the SPM, are being asked to:

1)  Sign into the system and familiarize themselves with the website.

Below are the seven steps to the Phase 1 (Registration):

Step 1 – SPM registers your facility – SPM will need the following information:

·  CMS Certification Number (CCN) - (associated with the facility at this mailing address)

·  Registration Code (supplied within this letter)

·  Email address that will receive Pilot notifications and will also serve as your User ID

·  Name and business phone information

Step 2 – Pilot system will send the SPM his/her system-generated password to the email address supplied in Step 1.

Step 3- SPM signs onto the Pilot website using his/her User ID (email) and system-generated password. At that time, he/she will be immediately prompted to change his/her password.

Step 4 – Where applicable, SPM designates additional facilities for which he/she will be responsible.

Step 5 – SPM designates the Data Steward(s) for each of his/her facilities.

·  Select the facility(ies) and identify the Data Steward(s) who will be responsible for submitting and approving the quarterly data for each facility.

·  Complete all of the contact information, especially the email since it will be used to generate email notifications to the Data Steward(s) requesting him/her to sign-on to the Pilot System

Step 6 – Pilot system will email each Data Steward his/her system-generated password supplied in Step 5

Step 7- The Data Steward(s) signs on to the Pilot website using his/her User ID (email) and system-generated Password. At that time, he/she will be immediately prompted to change his/her password.

Phase 1 (Registration) is now complete.

Phase 2 will begin on July 2, 2012 – At that time, the Data Stewards will be sent an email requesting the quarterly upload or manual data entry of their facilities staffing and census data. Quarterly staffing data is comprised of three main types of data:

  1. Employee record –An employee record is required for each employee at the facility for whom staffing data will be submitted. Fields captured for each employee include: Employee ID, CCN, Start Date, and Termination Date (if employee is terminated).
  2. Staffing record –This record is used to supply staffing hours for this fiscal quarter at this facility. Fields captured on the staffing record include: Employee ID, CCN, Date Worked, Job Title, Productive Hours, Non-Productive hours. Each staffing record is added to the database and the total hours by Employee ID for each day is calculated and accumulated. The sum of all staffing records for each employee for a given day must be less than or equal to 24 hours otherwise the record will be rejected and flagged with an error. To reduce hours, a staffing record with negative hours must be sent. Likewise to increase the hours a staffing record with the hours to be added to the employee’s total hours for that day must be sent. An employee record must also exist on this facility for the Employee ID sent on the staffing record – if an Employee ID does not exist, all staffing records for that employee will be rejected and flagged with an error. All data sent must be for dates within the specified fiscal quarter.
  3. Census Record – Required when submitting Census Data – The Census supplies a one day snapshot that provides the count of “Medicare beds”, “Medicaid beds” and “beds covered by Neither” on the 90th day of the fiscal quarter at this Facility.

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