Switch banks without missing a payer deposit

Goal: move your banking with zero misdirected payer payments and zero payroll surprises. Why a playbook: your account is referenced in dozens of systems that don’t know about each other: every payer enrollment, every aggregator, payroll, autopays, your loan, your processor. A bank switch is a re-enrollment project with a banking step attached.

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The cardinal rule

Keep the old account open and funded until the last payer verifiably deposits into the new one. The overlap costs a month or two of fees. Misdirected payments cost far more.

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The timeline

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Phase 1: Map (week 0)

List everything pointing at the old account:

• Payers by dollars from 12 months of deposits, including the disguised ones (ECHO, Zelis, Payspan, Optum descriptors are payers on aggregator rails)
• Outflows: payroll, EFTPS and state taxes, loan autopays, rent, insurance, subscriptions, processor settlement
• Paper: who mails checks where (lockbox considerations)

A line-by-line statement review catches what memory misses.

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Phase 2: Open and prepare (weeks 0 to 1)

Open the new accounts (structure), assemble the enrollment packet, and stage the change list: payers ranked by dollars, grouped by portal so one session covers many payers.

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Phase 3: Re-enroll payers (weeks 1 to 6)

Work the directory as changes, not new enrollments. Expect re-verification steps: penny deposits, EnrollSafe’s callback, Optum Financial’s ~5-day window, up to four weeks for slow payers. Medicare needs a new CMS-588 via PECOS. Biggest payers first, so the highest-dollar exposure window is shortest. Track three states per payer: submitted → accepted → verified (a real deposit in the new account). Only verified counts.

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Phase 4: Move the outflows (weeks 2 to 4)

Payroll first, with one validated cycle before cutover. Then taxes, loans, vendors, processor settlement. Leave a buffer in the old account.

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Phase 5: Drain and close (weeks 6 to 10)

The old account’s deposit activity is the progress bar. Zero deposits for 2 to 3 weeks plus every payer verified: sweep and close. Keep the final statements as the audit trail, and run reconciliation across both accounts during the overlap. That’s what catches the forgotten payer.

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Special cases

Acquisitions: the buyer runs this on the deal timeline, see Buy a practice. Lender-required moves: same playbook; negotiate the deadline around re-enrollment reality. Selling: keep the old entity account open through the A/R tail per the purchase agreement.