Prepare and export PBJ reports
RehabAlpha is still under active development. It is not yet HIPAA compliant and should only be used with dummy data.
Use Reports → PBJ to review licensed therapy staffing hours and prepare monthly or quarterly exports for a nursing home's Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) submission. Download a CSV for review and a separate XML file for each PBJ reporting facility.
Before you start
- You need Owner or Admin access to run PBJ reports and manage employee mappings and facility employment dates. This access also includes creating and correcting other members' timesheet entries.
- Configure each service location's PBJ settings and each reporting member's employee ID for that location.
- Check that the member's allowed Work classification has PBJ selected in the organization's timesheet settings.
- Record actual timesheet hours at the correct service location. Hours must already exclude meals, unpaid time, and other nonreportable work. Clock out for those periods or correct the timesheet entries before reporting.
- Finish the period's clinical documentation. Record actual service minutes and Number of patients for group services.
Understand PBJ reporting facilities
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| RehabAlpha facility | The building, campus, or operating site your team manages, with its own patients, schedules, and other work. |
| Service location | A specific care setting within a RehabAlpha facility, such as a nursing-home wing or an outpatient clinic. PBJ settings and employee mappings are configured for each service location. |
| PBJ reporting facility | The nursing home whose staffing hours are being reported. RehabAlpha combines resident-care service locations with the same state and PBJ facility ID into one reporting facility. |
| PBJ facility ID | The identifier used for the nursing home's CMS PBJ submissions. RehabAlpha includes this ID in the XML export. |
| CMS Certification Number (CCN) | The nursing home's six-character certification number. Keep any leading zeros. This appears as PROVNUM in the review CSV and CMS PBJ public datasets. |
A PBJ reporting facility is derived from the service locations' PBJ settings; there is no separate reporting-facility field to complete during setup. See facilities and service locations for examples of how to organize where your team works.
Configure service locations
Open a facility's Locations tab, select a service location, and edit its Reporting designation under PBJ settings. When creating a location, the first place-of-service selection suggests a designation if you have not already chosen one:
| Place of service | PBJ designation |
|---|---|
| 31 — Skilled nursing facility; 32 — Nursing facility | PBJ resident care |
| 11 — Office; 19/22 — Outpatient hospital; 49 — Independent clinic; 62 — Outpatient rehabilitation facility | Outpatient |
| All others | Not included |
Review the suggested designation and change it if needed. The saved designation stays in place when the location's place of service changes.
For a PBJ resident care service location, enter both its PBJ facility ID and CMS Certification Number (CCN). These are separate identifiers; confirm both with the reporting nursing home's PBJ administrator. Service locations with the same state and PBJ facility ID are combined in one report. Their CCN and time zone must agree.
In this fictional example, Example Nursing Home has two service locations: East wing and West wing. Both use the same state, PBJ facility ID, CCN, and time zone. Staff record their work at the actual wing, and RehabAlpha combines the eligible hours into one PBJ reporting facility's report and XML export.
Configure employee IDs
Open a member's Settings and find the PBJ settings card. This card is available to Owners and Admins for every member, including associates, physicians, and therapists.
Choose all service locations applies the same employee ID and pay type to every current and future service location in the organization, across every PBJ reporting facility. Use this option only when every reporting nursing home assigns the member the same employee ID and pay type. Otherwise, use Choose specific service locations and group locations that share those values in one mapping.
- Select Add mapping to add a row. Under Select service locations by, select the appropriate option. If you choose specific locations, select them under Service locations. Each option shows the RehabAlpha facility and service location.
- Review PBJ employee ID and select PBJ pay type. Both are required. New rows suggest an employee ID from the member's name and role; replace it if the reporting nursing home uses a different ID. These values apply to every location covered by that row. Each service location can appear in only one mapping.
- Edit existing rows directly, or use a row's remove button to remove its mapping. You can add, edit, and remove several mappings before saving.
- Select Save to apply all changes together, or Cancel to restore the last saved mappings and facility employment dates, including any rows you removed.
A mapping for all service locations must be the member's only mapping. Remove other rows before choosing it. You can create it before any service locations exist. Switching between all and specific locations before saving preserves your selected locations.
An employee ID can differ between PBJ reporting facilities. Service locations that belong to the same PBJ reporting facility must use the same employee ID and pay type for that member. When changing either value, update all affected rows before selecting Save.
Use the employee ID assigned by the reporting nursing home. Each person needs a distinct employee ID within that PBJ reporting facility. Saving is blocked if another member uses the same employee ID at a selected service location. Include every resident-care service location where the person records labor in a mapping. In the East wing and West wing example, a member working at both can select both wings in one mapping and enter the employee ID and pay type once. Use separate mappings when the employee ID or pay type differs between reporting facilities. A linked user account is not required.
Contract is the default pay type for therapy staff employed by a contractor. Use Exempt or Non-exempt only when that describes the employee's relationship to the reporting nursing home.
Add optional facility employment dates
Use Facility employment dates in the same PBJ settings card when the nursing home wants hire or termination dates included in its PBJ submission. Confirm the dates with its PBJ administrator, or leave them blank. CMS makes both dates optional and defines them for each nursing home:
- PBJ facility hire date: When paid service began at that nursing home. For contract staff, use the first date worked and billed there. A transfer to another nursing home has its own start date.
- PBJ facility termination date: When paid employment ended at that nursing home. For contract staff, use the date the facility or agency communicates that the person will no longer provide services there.
These dates describe work at the reporting nursing home, not employment with the therapy company. See the CMS PBJ Policy Manual, section 2.1.
- Select Add employment dates under Facility employment dates.
- Choose the PBJ reporting facility. It must have a resident-care service location configured with a state and PBJ facility ID.
- Enter either date or both dates. Use valid dates from January 1, 1895 through December 31, 2050.
- Select Save to save employment dates and employee mappings together, or Cancel to restore both sections.
Each member has one current date pair per PBJ reporting facility, shared by all its service locations. Dates are maintained separately from employee-ID mappings, so a member using Choose all service locations can still have different dates at different nursing homes. RehabAlpha does not copy organization employment periods or infer these dates from recorded hours.
To change a saved reporting facility, remove its employment-date row and add a new one. Clearing both dates removes the row when saved. If a reporting facility becomes unavailable after service-location changes, its saved dates remain visible for removal; they are not moved to another reporting facility.
For a rehire, update the current dates in agreement with the nursing home's PBJ administrator. RehabAlpha does not retain a history of PBJ employment periods. The current dates appear even when you run a report for an earlier period, and they do not exclude hours before hire or after termination.
Check therapy roles
The report supports OT, OTA, PT, PTA, and SLP. With Automatic from credentials on a timesheet entry, it selects a role only when the therapist's licenses identify exactly one supported role for the service-location state and work date. Student credentials do not qualify.
When more than one role qualifies, edit the timesheet entry and choose PBJ role. That choice must still match the therapist's credentials for the location and date. Record separate entries for work in different roles. Review the therapist's Details → Licenses if a role remains unresolved. Employee mappings alone do not qualify an associate or physician for therapy staffing hours.
Run and review the report
- Open Reports → PBJ.
- Choose PBJ version. The latest supported version is selected by default and marked (latest).
- Choose Month or Fiscal quarter, then select the year and period.
- Leave PBJ reporting facility set to All reporting facilities for the first review, or select a reporting facility from a previous result. The choices become available after you run a report.
- Choose XML employee data using the export options below. Employee IDs only is selected by default.
- Select Run report.
- Review Employee details, Daily staffing hours, and Outpatient allocation. The report shows its PBJ version beside the reporting period. Employee details shows each employee with staffing rows once per reporting facility, including their current hire and termination dates and whether the XML will include them.
- Resolve the messages under Resolve before XML export. Use Member details to review credentials or navigate to Settings → PBJ settings for employee mappings and dates. Use Timesheet to correct the source entries, then run the report again.
- Select Download review CSV for internal review. When the reporting facility's report is ready, download its XML file and give it to the nursing home staff responsible for the combined submission. CSV and XML filenames include the report's PBJ version; XML filenames also identify the employee-data option.
PBJ version selects the CMS PBJ specification used for the report's calculations, validation, and exports. Changing the reporting dates leaves the selected version unchanged.
The Timesheet link opens the message's date when one is shown. For a message without a date, it opens the first month of the reporting period. When reviewing a fiscal quarter, adjust the timesheet dates to check the remaining months.
After changing PBJ version, the period, the PBJ reporting facility filter, or XML employee data, select Run report again before downloading. Exports recalculate from the current saved information, so changes made after your review can cause XML validation to fail; run the report again to see the current messages.
The CSV remains available when there are staffing rows to review, even if XML is blocked. Each reporting facility's XML requires staffing rows and no applicable validation messages. A message for one reporting facility blocks that facility's XML; a message without a reporting facility can block all XML exports. Downloading a file does not submit it to CMS.
An XML export includes an employee only when they have a staffing row for that reporting facility and period. Employee mappings and employment dates alone do not add anyone to the XML.
Choose XML employee data
| Option | What the XML includes |
|---|---|
| Employee IDs only | An employee section containing PBJ employee IDs without hire or termination dates. This is the default. |
| Employee IDs and employment dates | The employee IDs and any saved hire or termination dates. Blank dates are omitted, and missing optional dates do not block export. |
| Staffing hours only | Staffing hours with employee IDs, without an employee section or employment dates. |
These options do not change the reported hours or review CSV. Employment-date errors appear in Employee details, but block XML only when Employee IDs and employment dates is selected and the affected employee has staffing rows for that reporting facility.
For Staffing hours only files submitted directly to CMS, the employee IDs must already exist in that nursing home's CMS employee roster. Confirm this with the facility; RehabAlpha cannot check its CMS roster. CMS supports submitting hours without employee details for existing employees. CMS technical guidance, question 18
When combining files, agree with the receiving facility on the reporting facility, employee IDs, and any employment dates before export. If the facility maintains its own employee roster or you are correcting historical hours, use Staffing hours only after confirming the employee IDs exist. Make employee-detail corrections in the facility's system or iQIES. Clearing a date in RehabAlpha omits it from future exports; it does not guarantee that a previously submitted CMS date will be cleared.
The XML uses merge processing. Submitting an employee's day replaces that employee's existing hours for that entire day, including other roles. It does not add hours from separate vendors. The receiving facility must combine complete daily records before submission. CMS technical FAQ, question 39
Understand the hours
PBJ starts with completed timesheet entries and dated manual hours at PBJ resident care service locations. Time-off classifications, work classifications saved as ineligible for PBJ, custom work locations, and labor at Not included service locations are excluded. Labor recorded at Outpatient locations is used to reconcile outpatient deductions and does not contribute to resident-care labor hours. Time ranges, including entries spanning several days, are allocated to local calendar dates using the reporting location's time zone; only hours within the selected period are included.
PBJ eligibility comes from the classification saved on each timesheet entry. Changing the organization's classification settings does not update existing entries, and saving an entry with the same classification keeps its saved eligibility. Review affected entries when changing classifications.
Outpatient clinical minutes are calculated from submitted treatments with Completed or Completed - Partial Session selected, plus submitted evaluations and re-evaluations at outpatient locations:
- Individual service minutes count in full.
- Each outpatient patient's group minutes are divided by the group's Number of patients.
- Concurrent minutes count at half their recorded value. They are already part of service-item minutes and are not added again.
- Co-treatment annotations are not added as extra time.
For each therapist, RehabAlpha facility, and date, the report subtracts outpatient labor already recorded separately from the calculated outpatient clinical minutes. It spreads any remaining deduction proportionally across that day's eligible hours by PBJ reporting facility and role. Review this allocation when a therapist works at several locations. Selecting one PBJ reporting facility keeps this shared allocation; Outpatient allocation still includes the totals for that reporting facility's RehabAlpha facilities.
The report combines hours by reporting facility, employee, date, role, and pay type, then rounds PBJ hours to two decimal places. The report blocks XML when an employee's total at one reporting facility exceeds 22.50 hours in a day across all roles, using either the unrounded or rounded total. This PBJ export check applies even though timesheets do not impose a duration maximum.
Resolve missing or inconsistent information
| Report problem | What to review |
|---|---|
| Missing service location | Assign the actual service location on the affected clinical document or timesheet entry. A facility alone is insufficient for PBJ allocation. Custom work locations are excluded from PBJ. |
| Open or overlapping labor | Correct a missed clock-out or correct overlapping time ranges. Open labor is not counted as completed PBJ hours and can block XML. |
| Missing or conflicting identifiers | Check the service location's PBJ facility ID and CMS Certification Number (CCN), and the member's employee ID and pay type at every resident-care service location. |
| Invalid stored employment dates | Contact support to correct the member's stored PBJ employment dates. This blocks XML only when Employee IDs and employment dates is selected; other XML modes remain available when their report requirements are met. |
| Unresolved role | Check the therapist's licenses and the entry's PBJ role using the role requirements. |
| Missing outpatient services or minutes | Complete the source document's actual service minutes, including untimed services, group Number of patients, and concurrent minutes where applicable. |
| Outpatient deduction exceeds labor | Compare Outpatient allocation with clinical documentation and separately logged outpatient hours for that therapist, facility, and date. |
| Daily hours exceed 22.50 | Check for duplicate hours, incorrect dates, and nonreportable time across all roles for that employee and reporting facility. |
Review validation messages even when the page says No reportable labor was found for this period. Missing locations, unfinished labor, or configuration problems can prevent usable rows from appearing.
Understand reporting periods
| Federal fiscal quarter | Months |
|---|---|
| Q1 | October–December of the preceding calendar year |
| Q2 | January–March |
| Q3 | April–June |
| Q4 | July–September |
For example, October–December 2026 is FY2027 Q1 in the XML. The CSV's CY_QTR column uses calendar quarters, so the same dates show 2026Q4. Monthly exports contain daily rows, just like quarterly exports.