Understand the Whole Grain-Rich Edit Check

About the Whole Grain-Rich Requirement

Child care providers 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 HX to receive the maximum reimbursement.

Not all meals require the grain component, such as a snack with 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 Q.008 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 187 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.

The Whole Grain Edit Check looks at meal rates only and runs after all other edit checks. It will disallow the lowest remaining creditable meal if the whole grain requirement was not met. As such, meals are disallowed in the following order:

  • AM Snack
  • PM Snack
  • Evening Snack
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch
  • Dinner

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 187 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 provider 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.