How Pivotal Health Care Simplified PBJ Review Across 10 Communities

Submitting Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) data across 10 communities required extensive reconciliation for Caitlin Carey and her team at Pivotal Health Care.

The organization used Paycom for payroll and its previous scheduling software to generate PBJ reports. The team then compared the two reports and investigated discrepancies by reviewing individual employee timecards.

Technical issues, incorrect job-code mapping, and missing employee records complicated the process. The scheduling software also excluded certain hours, including training, requiring additional review to ensure the data was accurate.

The timing made these issues especially frustrating. In some cases, the team received notice of a system issue just two days to a week before the submission deadline and had to revalidate its data.

“We’re pretty detailed with our reconciliations that we do before submission,” Carey explained. The team also maintained backup documentation in case of an audit.

The solution: A more efficient way to review PBJ data

Pivotal Health Care adopted Covr’s PBJ Review Tool to consolidate staffing data, flag potential compliance issues, and make discrepancies easier to investigate.

The tool gives the team a centralized view of employee hours, job codes, and PBJ reporting data, along with compliance checks that help identify potential issues before submission.

Several capabilities have improved Pivotal’s process.

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1. Identify potential reporting issues earlier.

Covr flags potential problems that require investigation, including employees with more than 22.5 hours reported in a day, missing RN coverage, and employees appearing on multiple schedules.

During its review of third-quarter data, Pivotal identified employees assigned to multiple schedule templates. The team also caught payroll errors involving employees who had remained clocked in when they were no longer working.

These checks allow the team to investigate and correct issues before submitting PBJ data.

“Having the days without RN coverage flagged has been great. Sometimes we'll catch that a nurse manager worked the weekend but forgot to add their hours to the Covr schedule, so we can go back and double-check.”

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2. Reduce manual work for contingent staff reporting.

Previously, adding a new agency employee required the team to create a record in its scheduling software, wait for an employee ID, and then enter the employee’s hours.

With Covr, Pivotal can upload its existing spreadsheet of contingent staff hours in bulk. Covr assigns a PBJ ID when one has not already been assigned, eliminating several manual steps.

Carey noted that this process has saved considerable time for the team member who manages contingent staff spreadsheets.

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3. Simplify reconciliation across payroll and scheduling data.

When hours differ between Paycom and Covr, Carey can search for an employee directly in the PBJ Review Tool and quickly compare the relevant dates and hours against the employee’s timecard.

The tool also displays work-hour totals by job code and employee names alongside their IDs, making discrepancies easier to investigate without running a separate report or exporting data to Excel.

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4. Maintain better visibility into salaried employee hours.

Because Paycom does not track Pivotal’s exempt employee hours, the team created a salary-exempt schedule in Covr. Those scheduled hours feed into the PBJ review process, and individual communities can adjust them to reflect actual work arrangements.

The team can then compare the reported hours against PTO records and maintain supporting documentation for its submissions.

“We have multiple communities, and some use different schedules, which affects overall scheduling and the exempt portion for PBJ. The Covr team has been great to work with, helping us get what we need for each of those PBJ reports.”

The result: More visibility, less administrative work

With Covr, Pivotal Health Care has added an earlier review step to its PBJ process, making potential discrepancies easier to identify and investigate.

The team can now:

• Flag potential compliance issues before submission.
• Identify payroll errors and missing RN hours that require follow-up.
• Upload contingent staff hours in bulk without manually creating every employee record.
• Investigate differences between payroll and scheduling data more quickly.
• Review employee hours and job codes in one place.
• Maintain supporting documentation for its PBJ submissions.

Pivotal has also established a regular review cadence. Schedulers check labor allocations and reports daily or every other day, helping the team catch coding discrepancies before the final monthly review.

Want to simplify your PBJ review process?

See how Covr helps long-term care operators identify potential reporting issues, reconcile employee hours, and prepare PBJ data for submission.