Administration
      Back to home
      1. Centers and Center Sponsors
      2. Sponsors of Centers
      3. Administration

      Manage Policies

       

      Table of Contents

      In This Article

      Set Policies

      KidKare is designed to be highly customizable to meet a variety of business needs. The Manage Policies page allows you to customize KidKare and control many aspects of the program, such as edit checks, user preferences, general behavior, and so on. Review your policies to ensure that KidKare is set up to meet your agency's needs and expectations. If you operate in multiple states, you can set policies for separate states.

      Policies should only be changed by the main decision makers of the company and/or those with the authority to do so. Changes to policies could impact claims. You can control access to policy settings with user permissions and staff types.

      1. From the menu to the left, click Administration.

      2. Click Manage Policies. The Manage Policies page opens.

      3. Click  to expand each policy category and sub-category.

      4. Use the drop-down menus to enable or disable policies, as needed. If you operate in multiple states, you can use the corresponding menu to select the state(s) to which to apply the policy.

      5. When finished, click Save.

      Click Export to export all policies, descriptions, and their current settings to a spreadsheet.

       

      About Edit Checks

      Meal counts, attendances, menus, and more are entered into KidKare throughout the month. The software needs to process this data  at the end of each month. When a claim is processed, the system applies edit checks to the submitted meal count, menu, and enrollment data. It creates an error for any edit check that does not pass. Each error is documented on the Office Error Report (OER). 

      For example, the system checks to ensure that an individual child is not reimburse for more than 2 Snacks + 1 Meal or 2 Meals + 1 Snack. If a child is in attendance at additional meals, the extra meals are automatically disallowed, and the OER contains a claim error noting each disallowance.

      KidKare automatically selects the meals with the highest reimbursement rate to include on the claim. Meals with the lowest reimbursement rate are disallowed.

      Some policies cannot be changed within the software, such as those policies mandated by the federal government. Such policies apply to all traditional center claims. However, local and state regulations (which vary from state to state) are controlled by the Manage Policies window. Each policy usually has three to four options that determine which errors are generated on the OER, as well as the outcome of those errors. 

       

      Error Options

      Each policy that controls an edit check usually has three options:

      • Disallow: The processor automatically deducts meals based on the edit check that was violated.  For example, if a child enrollment form has not been received, claiming that child is out of compliance with regulations. KidKare can automatically disallow reimbursement for any meal in which the child was claimed. These meals an be added back later, if needed. However, if you would disallow most of the time, choose this option.

      • Ignore: The processor does not complete the edit check, and the error is not noted on the OER. For example, if checking to see if a child is claimed on a day or for a meal for which they are not enrolled is not a required edit check, you could set that policy to Ignore.

      • Warn: The error does not deduct from the reimbursement, but should be researched to ensure that proper documentation was received or that procedures were followed. These errors do show on the OER. For example, if a child noted with a special diet is served a meal and the Special Diet Statement has not been marked as received in KidKare, the processor notes Allow/Warn on the OER for this child's meals. This allows your staff to find out if the Special Diet Statement was received and correct the error in KidKare or disallow the meals. Note that this warning only shows when the claim is processed—not when the center is recording their claim.

      There may also occasionally be additional options available.

       

      Common Policy Adjustments

      Actual Quantities

      If you set policy M.1 to Y, centers must record actual quantities served at meals. Direct your centers to the Daily Menu article to show them how to record actual quantities served.

      Leftover Quantities

      Certain states require centers to record leftover quantities for each meal. When your centers record these quantities, they are added to the Menu Production Record. Centers can only record leftover quantities for meals for the current date or past date—they cannot record them for future dates. Leftover quantities do not affect claims processing.

      You must set Policy M.01f to Y to enable this feature. 

      Direct your centers to the Daily Menu article to show them how to record leftovers

      Staff Meals included in Meal Counts and Menu Production Record Totals

      You have the ability to include Staff Meals in your attendance counts which in turn includes the meals served to the staff in the quantity totals on your Menu Production Record.  To INCLUDE Staff Meals on the menu production record, set Policy L 03c. Include Staff Meals in Menu Production Records to Yes.

      Once this policy is set to Yes, a sub policy L 03d. Include milk in Staff Meals appears.  If your staff are drinking milk, set this policy to Yes.  If your staff are eating the meals but not drinking any milk, set this policy to No to remove the staff meal milk quantities from the milk audit and actual required quantities. .  

      Whole Grain-Rich Edit Check

      Child care centers/sites serving a meal or multiple meals in a day that include the grain component need to make sure that at least one of the grains served that day is whole grain-rich and indicate them as such in KidKare to receive the maximum reimbursement.

      Not all meals require the grain component, such as a snack where two other components, or breakfast if the grain component is replaced with a meat/alternate. If the grain component is served, there must be a least one meal that day in which the grain was whole grain-rich. If one or more grain components are served, but none of them are marked as whole grain-rich, the meal with the lowest reimbursement that included grains will be disallowed (i.e. snacks will be disallowed before breakfast, breakfast will be disallowed before lunch and dinner).

      Sponsor Preferences

      Sponsor Policy M.13. controls this edit check.  This preference can be set to disallow, warn, or ignore. The edit check will only evaluate meals if this preference is set to disallow or warn.

      Edit Check

      Error 100 displays on the Office Error Report (OER) when claims are processed if meals for non-infants include bread/grain components, but none of the recorded breads/grains were marked as whole grain-rich. Infants are not included in this requirement.

      Meals Disallowed

      If only one meal was served in a day and the meal did not include a grain, the error is not generated.

      Example
      The only meal served that day was a snack of apples and milk. The snack did not include the grain component. The meal is reimbursable, and the whole grain-rich edit check is not generated.

      If only one meal was served in a day and the meal did include a grain, but the grain was not marked as whole grain-rich, then error 100 is generated on the OER. 

      Example
      The only meal served that day was a snack of apples and crackers.  If the crackers were marked as whole grain-rich the meal will be reimbursable. If the crackers were not marked as whole grain-rich, the meal will be disallowed.

      If multiple meals were served and meals did not include a bread/grain, the meal with the lowest reimbursement that contained the grain component will be disallowed. 

      Example 1
      Breakfast, Lunch, and a PM Snack were served. Breakfast and Lunch both had a grain component, but neither were marked whole grain-rich. In this case, Breakfast would be disallowed. The PM Snack would not be disallowed in this scenario, since the grain component was not served. Breakfast was disallowed before Lunch, since it has a lower reimbursement rate.

      Example 2
      Breakfast, Lunch, and a PM Snack were served. Lunch was the only meal that included a grain, and it was not marked whole grain-rich. The center/site chose to serve a meat/alternate instead of a grain for breakfast that day. Therefore, the lunch is the only meal that included a whole grain, and it was not marked as whole grain-rich, so lunch would be disallowed.

      The whole grain-rich edit check will run after all other edit checks. So, if a meal that included a grain has already been disallowed for another reason, one of the remaining meals that contained the grain component would be disallowed.

      Example
      Breakfast, Lunch, and a PM Snack were served. The grain component was served at all three meals, but none were marked as whole grain-rich. The PM Snack was disallowed for an unrelated reason. The processor then disallowed the next available meal that included the grain component. In this example, Breakfast was disallowed.

      If the meal that was marked as whole grain-rich was disallowed for another reason, the whole grain-rich food satisfies the requirement, and another meal would not be disallowed.

      Example
      Breakfast, Lunch, and a PM Snack were served, and a whole grain-rich food was served at the PM Snack. The PM Snack was disallowed for an unrelated reason. The whole grain-rich food served at the PM Snack satisfies the requirement, therefore there would not be any additional disallowances.