Step 7: Open bank accounts

Open and control practice and DSO accounts, map payer and patient receipts, document signers, and preserve entity-level funds and records.

Bluebird’s professional entity and support company each need banking that matches their legal ownership, payer records, books, and agreements. Route payer and patient receipts to the account authorized for the enrolled billing provider and permitted under state law, payer and merchant terms, and any approved reassignment or transition mechanics. Preserve entity-level ledgers and do not give the support company unilateral rights inconsistent with required professional control.

What Bluebird did

Sam opened two accounts: Maya Okafor, D.D.S., P.C. (d/b/a Bluebird Dental), Operating, with Dr. Okafor as the sole signer and Sam holding view-only access, and Bluebird Practice Partners, LLC, Operating, with Sam as signer. Each application took about ten days because both entities were newly formed.

Why the practice account is a compliance artifact

Three separate rules converge on this account:

1. CPOD. State law may treat control of professional receipts as evidence of who operates the practice. The legal significance depends on the jurisdiction and the complete authority map. See Corporate practice of dentistry.
2. Payer and program terms. The enrolled billing provider, TIN, NPI, reassignment or agent authority, and EFT record must align. How receivables can be assigned or directed is contract- and program-specific and also shapes healthcare-AR financing. See Working capital and lending against healthcare AR.
3. Basic corporate separateness. Commingled funds can support veil-piercing arguments and create material diligence concerns.

There is a fourth stream: patient money. Map card settlements, financing proceeds, membership-plan funds, deposits, credits, and patient balances to the legal provider or other contracting entity that owns the receivable and owes the related service or refund. Configure the merchant account to that approved destination when you reach Step 9.

Do not improvise the EFT destination. Use the account the payer or program authorizes for the enrolled billing provider. Preserve any written reassignment, agent, lockbox, lender-control, or transaction-transition approval and test the first remittance and deposit together.

The minimum account map

For a single-PC launch, open these:

Entity	Account	Purpose
Practice entity	Operating	Receipts authorized for that billing provider land here; permitted practice obligations and management fees are paid out
DSO	Operating	Management fee income; all non-clinical expenses
DSO	Payroll (optional at launch)	Segregates the non-clinical payroll draw
DSO	Tax reserve (optional)	Set aside estimated taxes so they aren’t spent

As the group acquires practices, the account structure expands. You may need per-PC operating accounts, refund clearing accounts, and location-level reporting. See Structure accounts across your entities and Account structures for DSO-PC groups.

What the bank will ask for

How much you assemble depends entirely on where you apply.

At Lemma

The entity is verified from tax and state registration data, so the application is three groups of fields, the same for the PC and the DSO:

• Business profile: legal name, EIN, state of incorporation
• Control person: name, title, date of birth, address, email, phone; for the PC, the dentist-officer
• Beneficial owners: the persons required under the bank’s current policy (25% or more in Bluebird’s example)

Bluebird budgets about five minutes to complete each application. Some applications clear within hours, while new or unmatched entities may require identification documents or manual review.

The management services agreement (MSA) is not part of Bluebird’s standard field list, but Bluebird provides it to Lemma so the account permissions and funds flow can be configured against the agreement. Other banks may request different supporting documents or use the MSA only during review.

At a brick-and-mortar bank

Expect the business and ownership information above, plus a document packet for each entity.

For the PC: filed articles of incorporation (state-stamped), the EIN confirmation letter (CP 575), bylaws and the organizational consent authorizing accounts and naming signers, a stock certificate or ownership schedule showing the licensed shareholder, the dentist’s license, government ID for each person the bank requires, and a DBA certificate if the practice uses a brand. Bluebird needed the DBA document because patients know the practice as Bluebird Dental rather than the PC’s legal name.

For the DSO: certificate of formation and operating agreement, EIN confirmation letter, beneficial ownership information, and a foreign qualification certificate in the operating state.

See KYB/KYC document checklist for both lists in full.

Beneficial ownership questionnaires may not capture the full DSO-PC relationship. If a form asks who owns 25% or more of Bluebird’s PC, the answer is the dentist-owner, even though the MSA governs separate support-company economics. Answer the question as written, provide accurate control-person information, and explain the structure when asked.

Who signs

The practice account’s signers and delegates must follow the entity’s governing documents, payer records, bank requirements, and the state’s dental-control rules. In a conventional dentist-owned PC, the dentist-owner or another properly authorized PC officer commonly retains ultimate authority; do not turn that common pattern into a substitute for the actual statute and resolutions.

Use documented authority and role-based access:

• The entity adopts a written banking resolution naming lawful signers and approvers.
• Operations staff receive the least authority needed for reconciliation and payment preparation.
• The MSA authorizes the DSO to provide billing and financial administration services, including preparing payments for approval.
• The monthly management fee moves on an invoice, not a standing sweep the DSO controls unilaterally.

Unilateral support-company withdrawal authority over an affiliated professional entity’s account is a serious CPOD issue-spotter. Review signers, sweeps, payment approval, online roles, powers of attorney, and actual practice together under the state rule. See Move money between PC and DSO and Run a CPOD self-audit.

In-person vs online

New professional entities may require manual review when an automated KYB system cannot match a recently formed PC, licensed owner, or d/b/a. Bluebird budgets one to three weeks for a branch or manual process. A platform that verifies current registration data may accept the application in minutes and clear it the same day, although additional review is still possible. Start this work in parallel with Step 6.

Generalist banks often provide a separate login for each legal entity. That is manageable with one PC but cumbersome with ten, especially when the finance team needs dozens of statements and cannot see all entities together. Open bank accounts for your DSO and PCs covers the available account structures and banking options.

Your artifact from this step

• Practice operating account, open, with signers and approvals matching the governing authority
• DSO operating account, open
• Account and routing numbers recorded for Step 8’s EFT enrollments
• View-only access provisioned for bookkeeping
• A written note of which account each payer’s EFT will target

Checklist

• Practice operating account open; signers and approvals match entity documents and state professional-control rules
• DSO operating account open
• Entity funds and ledgers are separate, or any custodial or concentration architecture is specifically approved and documented
• Bookkeeper has read-only access to both
• Beneficial ownership questionnaires answered accurately
• Account numbers documented for payer EFT enrollment
• Confirmed no support-company authority inconsistent with state law, payer terms, bank documents, or the agreement stack

Next

Step 8: Enroll with your first payer

Pick one payer and go end to end: contract, EDI, ERA, EFT.