Chase is the default. Walk into any business banking conversation and Chase is the option that doesn't get debated. Branches everywhere. A phone tree. A relationship manager you'll meet once and never speak to again.

For a lot of medical practices, that's fine. Until it isn't.

What Chase Gets Right

The branches are great if you prefer in person interaction instead of a 24/7 efficient phone service. The ATM network is convenient. Credit card products are competitive. Merchant services run on Chase rails. If your practice has been on Chase for ten years and your operations team knows the wire desk by first name, ripping that out is non-trivial.

For a single PC with stable operations and no urgency to fix billing reconciliation, Chase keeps the lights on.

Where Lemma Wins

Three places where the price of being a generalist bank shows up.

Fees. ACH transfers run $0.10 to $0.45 each. Wires are $25 to $35. Cash management charges add up monthly. For a practice doing 200 ACH transactions a month, that's $25 to $90 monthly, every month. Lemma is $0 ACH and $15 wires. Flat. (all pricing data as of May 2026).

Yield. Standard business checking earns near zero. Chase has a savings sweep, but the rate is below 1%. On $400K of operating cash, the gap to a 1.75% APY platform is roughly $3,000 a year. Add it to the wire and ACH gap and you're closing in on $5,000.

Onboarding. Opening a second PC under an MSO at Chase means a new application, a new RM relationship, a new account number, and 60 to 90 days of paperwork. At Lemma, additional PCs onboard in 5 to 10 days, with separate FDIC coverage per entity and a single dashboard for the whole structure.

The bigger issue is what a generalist bank like Chase doesn't do. No ERA 835 matching. No medical lockbox at the right price. No virtual accounts that respect MSO-PC structure. You either layer in third-party tools at additional cost, or your billing team eats the manual reconciliation.

When Switching Makes Sense

If your practice processes ERA 835 files monthly, runs an MSO-PC structure, gets paper checks at the front desk, or has $300K or more in idle cash, the math against Chase compounds quickly. The branch network is real value, but it's not what's hurting your monthly close.

Most healthcare practices don't actually use the branch. They use the operating account and the lockbox. That's where the comparison happens.