Wells Fargo & Company is one of the most prominent brands in America. Its East Coast headquarters is in Charlotte, NC., the former headquarters of Wachovia, where I find myself walking through a busy office to the conference facilities. Leading the way is June St. John, Senior Vice President and Healthcare Product Manager at Wells Fargo Treasury Management. June and I are joined by Margaret Sheridan, Treasury Management Marketing and by phone from the bank’s Dallas location, Justin Freeman, Manager of Lockbox and Healthcare Products listens in.

My first impression walking into a bank, and I surveyed over 120 banks nationwide in 1995 before carving out the medical banking niche, is how focused they are on customer service. It seems that everything that can be done to make the visit pleasant is being done. It reminds me a bit of an upscale hotel chain. They constantly emphasize the importance of serving the customer. Its much the same way in banking.

That kind of mind set, serving the customer, is playing well in modern healthcare as we trend towards medical consumerism. The bank invests heavily to establish consumer mind share and to perpetuate brand through multiple venues and activities, community support, business support, advertising, consumer-friendly websites, branch locations and more.

Medical banking is a lucky recipient of an already budgeted spend to reach the consumer and I try to emphasize this point when speaking to groups across the country. We can build the next generation healthcare platform to link consumers to digital health programs but who will invest the money to speed its adoption? Banks already invest in moving consumers from offline to online banking. Why not use a platform that is already targeting consumer adoption of online platforms?

Before we get started, June tells me that Marion Manchester who heads Healthcare Sales for Wells Fargo Treasury Management, left a message for me: “Tell John we’re out on the road electronifying healthcare providers”. I love that message because I truly understand what she’s saying. I’ve been there before. I know that selling a new value paradigm like medical banking requires expertise and persistence. It’s not easy. We truly owe it to the road warriors that are selling this program to make this innovation happen.

The issue reminds me of a post I received on Twitter from a person who said “you don’t get what’s happening on the street.” She was talking about how people are trying to do their healthcare with no insurance, no support, etc. I empathize with her, having at one point been uninsured for five years trying to create the medical banking concept, but I want people like her to know about the enormous efforts of banking groups who are on the road – countless meetings, re-groupings, re-architecting message, PowerPoints, etc, to explain the benefit. The work they are doing will result in substantial benefit. The savings that are realized by a specialized lockbox platform, for instance, can support indigent and charity care to the tune of $35 billion or more. The typical hospital will realize operational savings not as money in their hands but as increased capability to manage cases in the emergency room, for example, where many uninsured go for treatment (whether good or bad it is reality).

My first question to the bank is about the goals they are trying to achieve in healthcare. “We’ve been looking a lot at healthcare and we routinely do this to determine how to support our customer base,” Justin replies thoughtfully. “A large portion of what we do is responding to their needs. We are part of the fabric of the community and we take our queue from our healthcare clients as to what we can do to help them. This spans from associating “data and dollars”, specializing lockbox programs, reconciling funds more efficiently and more.”

“And it also includes the consumer dimension,” June adds. “We look at using our programs and infrastructure to serve their interests, like point of service payment processing, how to connect to Health Savings Accounts products, card products that improve working capital and other areas where we can add value.” This includes a new program offered by Wells Fargo for online banking customers that allows individuals to store their health records. I’m interested in this because it’s the first program I’ve heard of that addresses a key point of the Point & Click Expedition – driving healthcare online for consumers.

I end the interview by asking about the integration of Wells Fargo and Wachovia. Today the group is integrating the best of what both brands do – multiple lines of business for healthcare and support for the sales effort. Considering the substantial reach of this newly merged organization, and its potential to improve healthcare using medical banking programs, I wish them the best and look forward to what the future holds for harnessing their national foot print for bringing healthcare online. Until next post…

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On a more personal note…

Its been almost two weeks since my last post. I was called into a family emergency that was the most painful healthcare and life experience I’ve ever had. I will write about this when I’m ready. In the meantime, I believe its so important that we push forward…and we need to understand our leadership in the global stage. Regardless of where we rate in quality among nations, the world takes its queue from our debate in healthcare - the things that we are looking at and how we’re trying to solve problems. Our fight to save our healthcare system is local but the impact of our debate is global, and I saw this first hand in the island of Puerto Rico. Until next post…