Michael Epps Utley {kind=image/jpg}
It’s no secret that healthcare facilities must be accessible to everyone—the same goes for healthcare websites. Healthcare website accessibility has become mandatory in the U.S.
If you’re unsure about what all this means for your practice and website, we’ve put together the following guide explaining why accessibility and compliance —ADA, WCAG, and HIPAA—matter, how to make websites compliant, and how these requirements benefit your audience, your organization, and anyone visiting your site.
What Are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines?
In April 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published a ruling explicitly addressing the accessibility of web content and mobile apps for state and local government entities. The rule officially adopts the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.1 Level AA as a technical standard. This is the second of three levels that most organizations aim for, as it includes access for users of assistive technologies.
While the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Title III (covering most private healthcare businesses) is a US civil rights law prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities, it still doesn’t have a specific technical standard written into law. The DOJ enforces compliance using WCAG 2.1 Level AA as a best practices standard. For healthcare providers serving populations over 50,000 that are state or locally run (such as public hospitals and health agencies), compliance with the ruling is mandatory by April 2026. Smaller entities must comply by April 2027.
Why Accessibility (ADA, WCAG) Is Vital
More than 70 million adults in the US live with a disability. Accessible healthcare websites ensure anyone with visual, hearing, cognitive, speech, or motor impairments can engage seamlessly to book appointments, communicate with providers, access personal medical records, and more.
The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in public life, employment, transportation, and places of public accommodation. This includes digital platforms, which must remove barriers through reasonable accommodations. Website compliance means following the guidelines laid out by the WCAG.
Failure to comply with this ruling can result in severe penalties and lawsuits. A non-compliant website can also damage your organization’s reputation and alienate patients with disabilities, significantly impacting your acquisition and retention rates.
Beyond legal exposure and the threat of boycott, healthcare providers have an ethical duty to offer equitable access to care and information. Healthcare digital marketing is part of this, too. An accessible website expands your reach, enhances your brand reputation, demonstrates corporate social responsibility, and can help with online visibility through better search engine rankings.
Why HIPAA Compliance Matters
Accessibility and compliance go hand in hand. A platform that is difficult to navigate excludes a large portion of the population, while a user-friendly website that lacks security puts patient privacy at risk.
Data privacy is a major concern in the digital era, and a HIPAA-compliant healthcare website helps build trust by actively preventing data breaches and theft.
HIPAA compliance for patient forms and data collection requires more than just administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) must be encrypted, access-controlled, audited, and handled in accordance with strict protocols.
When you invest in an accessible and compliant website, you’re positioning your organization as a trustworthy source of care and information that your patients and other audiences can rely on.
Website Accessibility Essentials
Optimizing healthcare websites begins with proper structure and content design, ensuring information is presented in multiple ways, navigation is universal, content is easy to understand, and the website works with different assistive technologies.
WCAG has established four principles for accessible website design, collectively known as the POUR framework. This stands for Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.
Let’s take a deeper look at these categories. (Buckle up. Things are about to get unavoidably technical.)
Perceivable—focuses on ensuring content is presented in ways that can be accessed and understood by all users. You can achieve this through:
Clear and concise text alternatives for non-text content, such as alt text for images that can be interpreted by assistive technologies.
Captions for multimedia (audio and video) and transcripts for audio-only content.
Ensuring adequate contrast between text and background colors.
Enabling users to adjust text size and color as needed without triggering annoying page behavior.
Operable—ensures users can operate the interface and navigate it successfully. You can achieve this by:
Enabling users to bypass blocks of content that are repeated on multiple pages (e.g., skip links).
Including clear and descriptive headings and labels.
Providing enough time for users to read and use the content (e.g., control over time limits).
Ensuring no content can cause seizures, such as flashing lights or animations (e.g., limits on flashing to below specific thresholds).
Including clear navigation options, including a consistent layout and the ability to retrace their steps.
Understandable—ensures that the information and operation of the interface are intuitive. This is achieved through:
Text that’s readable and understandable (simple language, clear fonts).
A logical and predictable structure for your content.
Clear instructions, error identification, and error suggestions.
Robust—ensures your website can be accessed and used reliably with a wide range of technologies. This means:
The website works well across different devices, platforms, and browsers.
Valid, semantic HTML markup follows best practices for CSS and JavaScript.
Using ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes and roles where appropriate.
The website has been tested with various assistive technologies, such as screen readers and magnifiers (not explicitly required in WCAG but considered a recommended best practice).
How SEO & Accessibility Overlap
The first of Google’s ten founding principles is “Focus on the user and all else will follow.” By prioritizing diverse user needs, you naturally align with what search engines aim to reward. Though accessibility is not a single, direct ranking factor, its principles overlap significantly with factors related to site structure.
Examples include:
Semantic HTML and proper heading hierarchy to improve crawlability.
Clear, descriptive anchor text to improve link interpretation.
Alt text that contextualizes imagery for visually impaired users and Google.
Transcripts and captions to support users with hearing impairments and create crawlable text.
Clear navigation and consistent layout that reduces friction, lowers bounce rates, and improves engagement.
The Best Way to Optimize Your Healthcare Website
By optimizing your healthcare website to ensure compliance with the ADA and WCAG, and HIPAA guidelines, you create an inclusive, equitable, and secure digital experience for all users. The result is better patient engagement and trust, improved reach, and a reputation for leadership within the industry.
Bear in mind that WCAG compliance standards are primarily directed toward web designers and developers—professionals who trade in a whole other language.
If you’re ready to pursue an optimized website for accessibility and compliance, our team of tech professionals is here to help. Get in touch with GoEpps now to book a consultation, and look forward to a website that sets you apart.
