The Six-Week Bank Account

You just signed a definitive agreement on a new PC. Closing is in 30 days. The seller's lawyer wants to know where the wire is going. Your incumbent bank's small business team helpfully tells you they can open the new account in 35 to 45 business days. That timeline does not match yours.

Slow account opening at a money-center bank is a feature, not a bug. They have a KYC team in Manila reviewing your EIN docs, a compliance team in Charlotte reviewing your beneficial ownership, and a relationship manager in Boston who returns your email next Tuesday. Each one of those handoffs adds days.

What Healthcare-Native Banks Do Differently

Healthcare-native banks pre-build the workflow for MSO-PC platforms. They know what an EIN attached to a PC looks like. They know what a CPOM-compliant ownership structure documents. They know what an Operating Agreement assigning the MSO as the manager looks like.

When you submit those documents, the bank's underwriting model recognizes them as a healthcare PC and routes you through a verified path. Lemma opens accounts for new PCs in 5 minutes when the documents are ready. Five minutes is not a marketing number. It is the actual elapsed time from submitting the application to a funded account number.

That speed is not magic. It is the result of treating MSO-PC structures as the default, not the exception.

What That Changes for Your M&A Cadence

If you are closing 5 to 20 practices a year, account opening speed maps directly to deal IRR.

A six-week account opening means you cannot route claims revenue to the right entity until week six. Until then, payer payments are either landing in the seller's old account (and you reconcile later) or sitting in escrow. Either path costs you working capital float, audit complexity, and operator time.

A five-minute account opening means you fund the new PC on closing day, route payer EFT enrollments the next morning, and have a clean operating account ready before the first patient encounter under your ownership. Your transition services agreement gets shorter. Your post-close cleanup gets cheaper.

For a 10-deal-per-year platform, the time savings compound into something real: faster integration, lower TSA scope, less commingled revenue, and a treasury team that does not dread the next close.

What You Need to Bring

To open an account in five minutes, have these ready before you start:

• The PC's EIN letter from the IRS (CP-575 or a 147C transcript)

• Government-issued ID for the licensed physician owner

That is it. No branch visit. No notary. No four-week wait.