CURRENT: Payroll Based Journal Policy Manual v 2.8 | August 2026
CURRENT POLICY IN EFFECT
PUBLISHED: August 2026
The current, active CMS Policy Manual is version 2.8, which was published in August 2026 as a minor technical update to reflect changes triggered by CMS’ move to the iQIES PBJ Reporting system from the prior QIES system.
This is the current PBJ Policy Manual in effect.
These changes to the Policy Manual did not modify any PBJ reporting requirements. Rather, CMS replaced out-of-date language and terms from the old QIES process with updated references to the current iQIES workflow.
Specific additions or changes included:
Replaced all references to “QIES” and “CASPER” reporting to iQIES and the reports available in iQIES.
For emphasis, add a second sentence (in italics here) to the deadline section, so that it now reads: “The PBJ system will not accept any submissions after the deadline. There are no exceptions.”
Provided new instructions on creating an iQIES account. Show me.
Updated all links to instructions, so that they now reference this iQIES PBJ User Manual.
Removed an old Census data entry instruction with language mirroring the census calculation methodology also found the in the Five Star Technical User’s Guide.
Census calculations are no longer submitted by SNFs. CMS instead uses Minimum Data Set (MDS) data to calculate a daily resident census for each facility via the method shown in both documents.