Expected Issue Date 2024
Announced January 2023

October 2022, CMS began to provide State Survey Agency surveyors (State surveyors) with extracts of Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) staffing data for use in annual nursing home certification surveys (also known as “inspections”). CMS instructed State surveyors to use this data to investigate specific instances of noncompliance with hourly staffing standards (for example, the requirement to have a registered nurse on duty for a minimum of 8 hours per day). Additionally, CMS instructed State surveyors to review PBJ data for indications of whether a nursing home has met the requirement to have sufficient staffing.

Our objective is to assess the early results of CMS’s strategy to use PBJ data to improve the enforcement of Federal nursing home staffing standards by State surveyors. We will review CMS’s plan for monitoring the success of the strategy and explore State surveyors’ experiences with using the data in their surveys.

Office of the Inspector General. “Assessment of CMS’s Early Use of Payroll-Based Journal Data To Improve Enforcement of Nursing Home Staffing Standards” Department of Health and Human Services, OEI-04-22-00550, January 2023.