Website accessibility for medical practices

Healthcare websites are a recurring target for accessibility complaints, and most of the fixes are unglamorous and cheap. Here is what matters, in roughly the order it matters — and the honest position on the “instant compliance” widgets you have been emailed about.

The rules, briefly

WCAG is the technical standard, currently version 2.2, with levels A, AA and AAA. AA is the level everyone means in practice. The ADA is US law; courts have consistently treated business websites as covered, and WCAG AA is the yardstick used. If you receive Medicare or Medicaid funding, Section 504 and Section 1557 add explicit obligations, and recent HHS rulemaking names WCAG 2.1 AA directly.

What to fix first

1. Colour contrast

   Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background; large text needs 3:1. Light grey on white is the single most common failure, and it is a one-line fix.

2. Alt text on meaningful images

   Every image conveying information needs a text description. Purely decorative images should have an empty alt attribute so screen readers skip them — describing a background swirl is worse than silence.

3. Keyboard operability

   Unplug your mouse and Tab through the site. Can you reach every link, open every menu, and submit every form? Can you always see where you are? Dropdown menus and modals fail this most often.

4. Form labels

   Every field needs a real associated label. Placeholder text is not a label — it vanishes when typing starts and many screen readers ignore it. Errors must say what is wrong in words, not just turn the box red.

5. Heading structure

   One h1 per page, then h2 and h3 in order without skipping. Screen reader users navigate by headings the way sighted users skim.

6. Captions on video

   Any video with speech needs captions. Auto-generated captions are a starting point, not an end point — they mangle clinical terms and drug names badly.

Things specific to practice sites

• Do not put your phone number, address or hours only in an image. They must be selectable text — this is also what lets a phone number be tapped to dial.
• Downloadable forms must be accessible too. A scanned PDF of a paper intake form is an image and is unreadable to a screen reader. Provide a tagged PDF, an HTML version, or a clear way to request the form another way.
• Third-party booking widgets are frequently the least accessible thing on the site, and they sit directly in your conversion path. Test yours, and ask the vendor for their accessibility statement.
• Do not rely on colour alone to convey meaning — required fields, availability, status indicators.

Checking your own site

Three free checks that catch most issues:

• Run your browser’s built-in Lighthouse accessibility audit (in Chrome DevTools).
• Tab through the site with no mouse.
• Turn on the screen reader you already have — VoiceOver on Mac and iPhone, Narrator on Windows — and try to book an appointment.

Automated tools catch perhaps a third of real problems. They are a floor, not a certificate.

Publish an accessibility statement

A short page saying what standard you aim for, what you know is imperfect, and how to reach a human who can help. It is good practice, it is required in some contexts, and it demonstrably reduces the chance of a complaint escalating — because a real alternative was offered.

FAQ