How the 10% HRSN uplift works — with a worked example

When an agency delivers an HRSN food service, reimbursement is typically the cost of the goods plus an administrative uplift — commonly 10% — recognizing the real work of coordinating vendors, deliveries, and documentation. Small percentage, outsized share of billing errors.

The basic math

Say a member's authorization allows $146/week for a food box, and this week's delivered order came to $130.00 of goods.

• Goods delivered: $130.00
• Uplift at 10%: $13.00
• Claim for the week: $143.00

Under the cap, everything fits. The subtleties start when it doesn't.

The cap question every agency should ask

Does the uplift fit inside the cap, or ride on top of it? The difference is real money:

Inside the cap

The cap limits goods + uplift together. With a $146 cap, delivering $140 of goods doesn't yield $154 — the claim is capped at $146, so the uplift gets squeezed to $6.

On top of the cap

The cap limits the goods only. $140 of goods claims $140 + $14 = $154.

Your Lead Entity's guidance settles which applies — get it in writing and apply it consistently. (In HiveMarket this is one configuration switch, not a re-training.)

Three mistakes that reach audits

1. Uplifting ordered instead of delivered. A claim follows the delivery. If two items were out of stock, the uplift shrinks with the goods.
2. Rounding drift. Percentages on dollars-and-cents amounts across dozens of members compound. Compute in cents, round half-up, once per claim line — not once per spreadsheet.
3. Uplift on non-goods lines. Delivery fees or substitutions handled outside policy don't get uplifted. Mixing them in inflates every claim a little — the pattern auditors search for.

The honest conclusion

Nobody should be computing this by hand. The math isn't hard — it's *relentless*: per member, per week, per delivery, with a cap interaction and a rounding rule. That's exactly the work software should absorb.

HiveMarket computes the uplift automatically for every delivered order — in integer cents, capped per your Lead Entity's rule, on a worksheet that's ready for Unite Us. See how the billing works.