Reimbursement Method

The reimbursement method is the way that My Food Program determines the value of your claim. State agencies have several options for how to figure out how much money to send you for your CACFP reimbursement.

To select your reimbursement method

• Click on Site Details from the main site dashboard

Scroll down the selection for reimbursement method and select from these options:

• Actual Meal Count by Type: Base reimbursement to institutions on actual time of service counts of meals served, and multiply the number of meals, by type, served to participants that are eligible to receive free meals, participants eligible to receive reduced-price meals, and participants not eligible for free or reduced-price meals by the applicable national average payment rate.
• Claiming Percentages: Apply the applicable claiming percentage or percentages to the total number of meals, by type, served to participants and multiply the product or products by the assigned rate of reimbursement for each meal type. You have the option to either round down or use conventional rounding, which allows the My Food Program claim estimates to match exactly the claim amounts calculated by state agencies with different rounding protocols.
  
• Blended Per Meal: Multiply the assigned blended per meal rate of reimbursement by the total number of meals, by type, served to participants.

Fixed Claiming Percentages is used when your state agency has you determine your population of free/reduced/paid participants for a single month and then use that same percentage for future months regardless of which participants are in attendance, participating in meal service or enrolled.

If the sponsor setting for FRP Method is set to "Fixed" you will see additional options in site details for Fixed Claiming Percentages:

To record a fixed claiming percentage

• Click on the blue button that says "Add Fixed Claiming Percentages"
• Enter the required information
• Start date of the claim percentage determination
• End date of the claim percentage determination
• Number of Free, Reduced and Paid participants
• (optional) Number of participants received subsidized care
• Click the green Save button

When you use Fixed Claiming Percentages, My Food Program will just use the free, reduced and paid counts that you entered and will not use the counts from the Participant Report.