Every rebate alert, and what you do about it
Rebate Recovery checks its own calculations for 29 kinds of problem, from a payment that is late to a market share measured against no market. Each row below says when the alert is raised, what money it touches, which lane of work it lands in on the sorting page, Control Tower, and what to do next.
How the alerts work
An alert is a conclusion drawn from the calculations, never a second calculation. That one idea explains most of how they behave.
Rules and arithmetic, not AI
Each alert is a rule applied to figures the engine has already calculated and explained. Nothing is AI-detected, and nothing is a prediction.
On a schedule, or when you ask
Detection runs across every contract on a regular schedule. An administrator can run it for the whole portfolio at any time, and one contract can be re-checked from its own alerts panel. It reads stored results, so a fix shows once the contract has been recalculated.
One problem, one alert
Each alert is tied to one problem: this type, on this contract, rebate and period. Found again, it is updated in place rather than repeated. When the problem is gone it resolves by itself, and if it comes back the same alert reopens.
Seen in the product, not sent
Each contract’s own alerts show on its page, for everyone who can open that contract. The portfolio inbox, which groups alerts by cause, and Control Tower, which sorts the money into lanes, are released to administrators first. Nothing is emailed today.
Kinds of money stay apart
Money owed to you, money hanging on an action, money booked as lost, a penalty the supplier could charge and cash not yet attached to a contract need different work. The inbox shows each as its own figure and never adds them into one total.
The 29 alert types
Each row is one rule. Filter by the Control Tower lane an alert lands in or by the kind of money it touches. Both are explained under the list.
Control Tower lane
Money
| Alert | Raised when | Money | Control Tower lane | Next move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payment overdue | A period’s earned rebate is more than has been received and allocated to it, and the period’s payment date has passed. | Owed | Overdue payouts | Check whether the payment arrived and was never recorded; most of these are bookkeeping. If it did not arrive, send the supplier the period and the earned figure. |
| Payment overdue after the form was filed | The compliance form went in, the supplier’s own payment window has run out since they received it, and money for the period is still outstanding. | Owed | Overdue payouts | Confirm the date the form was submitted, because the clock starts there, then chase the supplier quoting the form reference. |
| Billed above an earned price tier | A commitment was met that entitled you to a lower unit price, but invoices dated after that were still billed at the higher price. | Owed | Collect earned rebate | Confirm the date the commitment was met, pull the invoice lines billed above the entitled price since then, and ask the supplier for the difference. |
| Paid above contract price | Paid invoice lines inside the contract’s dates were billed above the contract price on file, compared per unit in each line’s own unit of measure. | Owed | Collect earned rebate | Rule out a legitimate mid-term repricing first, since contract prices on file are not dated. If the overcharge holds, request a credit with the two prices side by side. |
| Payment not fully allocated | A recorded payment names no contract, or the amounts allocated from it do not add up to what was received. | Fix first | Collect earned rebate | Attach the payment to its contract and period, or correct the split. An over-receipt may be repayable, so flag it rather than absorb it. |
| Price rise beyond the contract cap | The agreement limits how far or how often prices may rise, and invoiced unit prices have gone past that limit. | Owed | Compliance and missed | Rule out a pack-size or unit change, which looks exactly like a rise, then quote the cap clause to the supplier with the product and both prices. |
| Commitment going short | A spend, volume or share commitment measures as not met on a period that is still open. | At risk | Compliance and missed | Check the scope first, because a wrong product, supplier or facility list looks exactly like a real miss. If the miss is real, the shortfall is what purchasing has to move before the period ends. |
| Compliance form due | A period has ended and the compliance form the agreement makes its rebate depend on has not been recorded as submitted. | At risk | Compliance and missed | File the form with the period’s numbers and record the submission. That clears the alert and starts the supplier’s payment clock. |
| Form deadline passed | The forfeiture deadline passed with the compliance form still outstanding, so the supplier may forfeit the period’s rebate. | At risk | Compliance and missed | Submit now, or record the submission if it went and was never entered. Ask the supplier to accept it late; forfeiture is usually their choice, not automatic. |
| Sign-off missing on a commitment | A commitment that a person has to judge has an ended period with no judgement recorded, so it counts as not met and the rebates it gates book as lost. | At risk | Compliance and missed | Record the judgement, met or not met, with who made it and the paper behind it, then recalculate. The alert clears itself once it exists. |
| Rebate at risk over credit standing | The agreement lets the supplier withhold earned rebates while your account is not in good standing, and the standing recorded on the contract says at risk or withheld. | At risk | Compliance and missed | Check the recorded standing still applies, since nothing expires it. Clear the underlying invoices, record the new standing, and until then treat the outstanding earned as possibly uncollectible. |
| Outcome event report due | An event in an outcome-based program has earned its rebate, but the report the agreement requires has not gone to the supplier and most of the filing window has passed. | At risk | Compliance and missed | Get the facility to send the report the agreement specifies, then record the date it went. If the window has passed, file anyway and ask the supplier to accept it. |
| Outcome event exclusions not confirmed | An outcome event is being counted as payable, but nobody has recorded whether the agreement’s clinical exclusions apply to it. | At risk | Compliance and missed | Ask the facility to confirm the exclusions and record the answer. If one applies, mark the event rejected rather than deleting it, so the record still shows what happened. |
| Share measured against too wide a market | A share reads under a third of its commitment against a market at least 20 times your on-contract purchases, where a market-scope choice could be the cause. | Fix first | Compliance and missed | Ask whether that is the market the commitment was written about. Narrow the scope, recalculate, and read the share again, since the change moves both halves of the fraction. |
| Switching penalty is live | The agreement prices a penalty for moving a category away from the supplier, and the commitment it is tied to is currently short. | Exposure | Compliance and missed | Decide whether the shortfall is a deliberate conversion or drift. If deliberate, the figure is the price to weigh the decision against; if drift, moving purchases back shrinks it. |
| Missed rebate | A period closed with qualifying purchases that will not pay out: a tier not reached, a commitment missed, or scope that left the purchases out. | Lost | Compliance and missed | Read the engine’s note on the period. A threshold genuinely missed is a lesson for next period; a scope cause is a set-up fix, and the figure moves once it is fixed. |
| Period closing with money still winnable | An open period ends within 30 days, by default, and still carries rebate that could be earned before it closes. | Winnable | Tier opportunities | Check the gap to the threshold and whether planned purchasing closes it. If redirected spend can, hand the number to whoever owns the category now; once the period closes it becomes a missed rebate. |
| Next tier within reach | Purchases on an open period are within 10%, by default, of the next tier’s threshold. | Winnable | Tier opportunities | Decide whether the gap is worth closing. The figure on the alert is the spend still needed, not rebate; what the tier pays is a different and usually smaller number. |
| Admin fee statement disagrees | The supplier’s admin fee statement differs from the fee accrued on your own purchases, on the fee, on the purchase base it was worked out from, or both. | Fix first | Calculation health | Compare the purchase base first: a base mismatch is a disagreement about which purchases count, not about arithmetic. Take it up with the supplier once you know which side is off. |
| Rebate matched no purchases | A rebate calculated without error but found no purchase rows in its source for any period that has started. | Fix first | Calculation health | Check which purchase record the rebate reads against how this supplier’s purchases actually arrive, then check its product and facility scope. Ask for a missing file last. |
| Facility name not matched to a hospital | A rebate’s hospital rule still holds a facility name that could not be matched to a hospital record, so it pays $0 until someone resolves it. | Fix first | Calculation health | Pick the hospitals that cover the named facility, or confirm the ones already selected do, then recalculate. |
| Surgical cases cannot reach a hospital | A per-procedure rebate is scoped to hospitals, but none of them has an operating room location recorded, so no surgical case can match and it reads $0. | Fix first | Calculation health | Add the operating room location names to each hospital record, spelled exactly as the surgical file spells them, then recalculate. The rebate’s own hospital list is already right. |
| Pack size missing, so units under-count | A rebate counts individual units, but some of its products have no pack size recorded, so a box of 20 counts as one. | Fix first | Calculation health | Add the base unit and units per pack to each product named, from the supplier’s schedule, then recalculate. The rebate rule itself is fine. |
| Procedure counts not entered | A rebate that relies on procedure counts entered by a person has an ended period with no counts, so it reads $0 until they are entered. | Fix first | Calculation health | Get the period’s counts from the supplier’s compliance workbook, enter them with who reported them and when, and recalculate. |
| Share measuring no market | A share’s market holds only the supplier’s own products, so it reads 100% whatever you buy, or it matched nothing at all. | Fix first | Calculation health | Add the competing products so they count in the market without earning, or change the measure if it was never meant to be a share. Until then, treat any rebate that depends on it as unverified. |
| Period calendar no longer fits the contract | The contract’s dates, frequency or grace period changed after its periods were generated, or a set-up contract has no periods at all. | Fix first | Calculation health | Check the contract dates first, since regenerating against wrong dates only moves the problem. Then regenerate the periods and recalculate. |
| Calculation stuck | A queued calculation has been running for more than 2 hours or waiting for more than 24. | Fix first | Calculation health | Report it to support; nothing in the contract fixes it. Until it clears, read the affected figures as of their last successful run. |
| Annual cap applied | A year-end true-up settled below its annual ladder because the contract’s own annual ceiling applied. | Information | Calculation health | Read the settlement note; nothing needs fixing. Confirm once with the supplier how the cap is read, before a payment rests on it. |
| Tier uplift rule not applied | A rule that should lift a rebate to a better tier’s rate when a commitment is met could not be applied, so the rebate earned at its own tier. | Fix first | Not in a lane | Check that the tier the rule points to and the commitment it names still exist, and that the ladder is not a stepped one, where “pay that tier’s rate” has no single reading. No money was withheld; the rule is simply doing nothing. |
Thresholds such as 30 days or 10% are the product’s defaults. Severity is set by the rule, not by a person, and several alerts become critical as a deadline runs out.
The counts are of alert types, not of open alerts on any contract. The kinds of money are kept apart on every page and never added into one total.
What the money column means
- Owed5 alert types
- Money the contract says should already be yours: a payment past its date, or a price billed above what the agreement allows.
- At risk7 alert types
- Earned or bookable money that a deadline, a form, a sign-off or an open commitment still decides.
- Winnable2 alert types
- Money a period that is still open can earn if purchasing changes before it closes.
- Lost1 alert type
- A closed period that will not pay. Recoverable only by renegotiation or a true-up.
- Exposure1 alert type
- Money that could flow the other way: a penalty the agreement lets the supplier charge you.
- Fix first12 alert types
- A set-up, data or bookkeeping problem that makes the numbers untrustworthy. Fix it before chasing anyone. Most carry no dollar figure, on purpose.
- Information1 alert type
- Nothing is wrong. It explains a number that would otherwise look like a mistake.
Where each lane sends the work
- Collect earned rebate3 alert types
- Rebate earned but not yet received, invoice lines billed above the price you were entitled to, and payments received but not yet attached to a contract.
- Overdue payouts2 alert types
- Periods past their payment date with money still outstanding, on either payment clock.
- Calculation health10 alert types
- Everything that makes a contract’s numbers untrustworthy until it is fixed. Work this lane first: it decides whether the other figures can be believed.
- Expiring contractsNo alert types
- Contracts ending within 60 days. This lane is built from contract end dates, so no alert type lands in it.
- Compliance and missed11 alert types
- Commitments going short, rebate recorded as missed, form and sign-off deadlines, switching penalties and price-cap breaches. The work is a commitment review.
- Tier opportunities2 alert types
- Money still within reach before an open period closes. Upside, not problems.
- Not in a lane1 alert type
- Shows in the inbox and on its contract, but is not sorted into a Control Tower lane.
Bring the contract that worries you
In a working session we load one of your agreements, run it, and show you which of these alerts it raises and why. If your contracts produce a problem this list does not name, bring it to the demo.