Home Blog Guide to Contract and Rebate Management in Healthcare

Guide to Contract and Rebate Management in Healthcare

Guide to Contract and Rebate Management in Healthcare

Experience Daily Frustrations in Contract and Rebate Management?

Health systems struggle to create, update and manage contracts and rebates when fragmented data and manual processes hold them back by Reliance on manual workflow and cumbersome systems leads to delays, errors and missed savings.

At the same time, complex rebate structures and compliance risks pose significant challenges that can further erode savings and add stress to supply chain operations.

Health systems need a solution to simplify sourcing processes and unlock the full potential of contracts. This blog explores the problems that need to be addressed and how powerful data-driven solutions solve them. This guide covers the trends, innovation and best practices transforming how healthcare systems handle contracts and rebates for more savings.

What Causes Problems in Contract Oversight

What are the main sources of problems in contract and rebate management? These are frequent causes:

Data Silos And Manual Workflows: Managing contracts and rebates across multiple systems quickly gets resource-intensive and error-prone, leading to inefficiencies and missed savings.
Off-Contract Spend: Off-contract purchases jeopardize tier-based pricing agreements, resulting in higher costs and missed rebates.
Complex Rebate Agreements: It’s challenging to manage tiered pricing and multi-level rebate agreements, particularly with limited resources and fragmented data.
Compliance Risks: Contract compliance tracking often relies on outdated or incomplete data, increasing risk of savings erosion.

What’s Needed to Drive Sourcing Transformation?

What capabilities must a solution have to offset these challenges and streamline contract and rebate management? These must be priorities:

Complement Existing Systems: Works alongside your current contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools, offering capabilities most systems lack.
Proactive Monitoring: With automated alerts and monthly updates, can ensure contract compliance and address risks before they escalate.
Actionable Insights: Get visibility to easily track on- vs. off-contract spend and monitor rebate triggers to protect savings and prevent tier changes.

The Curvo Contract and Rebate Management solution provides these capabilities to help health systems consolidate purchase volumes, monitor compliance and optimize rebate performance.

Platform-Based System for Spend Management

The platform choice is essential because it’s the foundation of your contract and rebate strategy. A central platform makes it easier to consolidate purchase volumes and streamline workflows, and store, update, and track supplier contracts.

What to Expect from Platform-Based Contract Solution:

Simplifies complex rebate structures
Integrates with existing systems for efficiency
Flexible categorization for new contracts, tier rules, price files

Once the right tools, data and platform are in place, sourcing teams can function at a new level of efficiency.

Example: Curvo Platform for Contract and Rebate Management in Healthcare

Curvo offers a unified platform for consolidating purchase volumes and streamlining sourcing and contract workflows.

Handles multi-level rebate agreements, ensuring every opportunity is captured.
Spending pattern analysis to avoid missed rebates, maintain tier-based agreements.
Integrates with existing systems, enhancing workflows with automated, scalable solutions.
Improves supplier relationships by automating manual processes.
Frees teams to focus on insights and strategic decision-making.

With Curvo, healthcare sourcing professionals can create and manage contracts directly from the contracts dashboard. All key elements—product data, tier structures, pricing and cross-references—are consolidated in a single, connected system. This eliminates the need for scattered spreadsheets and manual workarounds.

Watch this video to see how the Curvo Platform works with contracts and rebates.

Building Better Healthcare Contracts, Step by Step

This section provides a more detailed view of the process of smart contract management using an end-to-end solution like the Curvo platform, workflow and data.

It all begins with entering essential contract details. Users input the contract name, effective dates and relevant organizational data. Optional fields like sourcing officer or contract description allow additional context without slowing down workflow. Once this foundational information is saved, the contract is stored in draft mode, ready to be built out with precision.

Next, users define tier-based pricing, a crucial tool for managing value across facilities or IDNs. Each tier includes facility-specific rules and rebate terms, giving sourcing teams the flexibility to align pricing strategies with utilization trends and volume commitments. Multiple tiers and rebate rules can be configured to support complex agreements with suppliers and group purchasing organizations (GPOs). While this might seem intimidating, the right solutions make it entirely possible.

When it’s time to upload product and pricing data, the system supports a fast drag-and-drop import process. Curvo’s intelligent field mapping ensures that uploaded data integrates seamlessly into the contract structure. Users can quickly review and edit pricing details, remove obsolete items, and confirm data accuracy before moving forward.

Cross-referencing comparable items is another valuable step, especially in environments where product substitutions, alternates or formulary alignment matter. Users can upload a new cross-reference file or pull from existing lists in their account. After mapping, the system displays matched items, giving the team full control to review or revise matches for clarity and consistency.

Supporting documents, such as supplier agreements or compliance forms, can be uploaded to provide a complete audit trail. The platform also offers an interface to manage member organizations, allowing users to assign activation dates and track spend behavior at the facility level. Market share and 12-month spend data can be viewed to support informed decision-making.

Finally, the contract summary brings all the pieces together. Users can review every section and easily navigate back to make edits. Once finalized, publishing the contract activates it in the system, making it immediately actionable for sourcing, compliance, and rebate tracking.

For healthcare sourcing teams looking to reduce manual effort, improve contract accuracy, and unlock hidden rebate value, Curvo contract management offers visibility and control over the contracting process.

Checklist: What to Look for in a Rebate and Contract Solution

Keep this short checklist handy as a quick guide to whether a solution will meet your contract and rebate needs. Look for capabilities like these to identify a comprehensive contract and rebate solution.

Comprehensive Contract Management

Create and Update Contracts: Easily manage price files, tiers, cross-references, and associated documents.
Track Compliance: Monitor tier rules and contract adherence with near real-time data updates.
Activate and Deactivate Facilities: Simplify facility and tier period management to reflect your organization's dynamic needs.
Off-Contract Insights: Identify and address off-contract spend to reduce cost erosion and ensure tier compliance.

Robust Rebate Management

Rebate Opportunity Tracking: Identify and maximize rebate opportunities tied to contract performance.
Tier and Rebate Eligibility: Define and manage eligibility criteria in real-time, ensuring timely rebate triggers.
Complex Rebate Structures: Handle sophisticated rebate agreements to maximize financial returns.

Take the Next Step

Watch this short video for more of what to expect from contract and rebate management technology.

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And you can always reach out for a demo of our dashboards and platform.