ADA Compliance For Medical and Dental Websites

ADA Adherence For Medical Websites and Doctors is Becoming More and More Important. It is Included in the Gold Service. No Need to Pay Extra. Read More About GOLD Service.  Read directly about ADA and website content guidelines https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/. and. https://www.ada.gov/taman3.html

There are so many regulations for doctors and medical practices in USA. Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, is one of many regulations making it’s way to lawyers and medical practices. For example, one of our customers with 3 medical practice locations was served with a lawsuit. Although this was an attempt to extort money, the doctor had no choice, but to settle the case. This can happen to any medical practice in USA.

What is ADA?

The Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, is a federal law passed in 1990 that aims to protect the rights of disabled people to ensure they are not discriminated against due to their disability. Most people are familiar with the physical accommodations by the ADA that businesses are required to make, such as automatic door openers and wheelchair ramps. Now these guidelines apply to the internet and medical websites as well. Since 2018, we have seen many lawyers sending lawsuit letters to physicians and medical practices.   The ADA requires that public places, including hospitals and physicians’ offices, be accessible to people with disabilities. This new law is now extended to healthcare websites. The U.S. Department of Justice has taken the position that websites open to the public must also be accessible in various ways to people with sight or hearing impairment.  Read more at official government website here. 

Do all websites have to be ADA compliant?

Technically, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III, which concerns public businesses, does not specifically address websites. Local and state government websites must be accessible under Title II of the ADA and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Andres Gomez vs. CAC Florida Medical Centers (2017). Read more at. https://healthcareweekly.com/ada-compliance-healthcare-websites/

Andres Gomez is a serial ADA plaintiff who is legally blind. He recently filed an ADA lawsuit against CAC Florida Medical Centers in Federal District Court in Florida, claiming that he wasn’t able to access the company’s website via a screen reader. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by the judge.

Read more details here:

https://www.ada.gov/taman3.html

GOLD Service Includes ADA Adherence

There are specific steps you will need to take to make sure your website is accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.  This requirement is specifically if you are a brick and mortar clinic.  There are technical requirements and adherence required for medical websites.  Every page on your website has to adhere to standards. Contact us and go through the GOLD Service here. 

1) ADA does not have “compliance” certification for websites
2) There are guidelines and accommodations that a website site provider must provide for certain patients who need extra support per. https://www.afb.org. Legally blind people use screen readers (https://www.afb.org/) – These screen readers are software. And all screen readers do not work on all websites. So healthcare providers should provide “reasonable” accommodations.

We offer the “reasonable” accommodations, with our service and it is included in your service.
We offer following accommodations in your service:

Some areas to consider are :

1) Pages with specific titles (H1) and headings to help with screen readers
2) Pages with (H2) titles so the screen readers easily read the page.
3) Page text is NOT “hidden”
4) Clear disclaimers at the bottom of pages
5) Navigation ease. Websites should have simple navigation with titles, rather than hidden menus and image based menus that are harder to read by the screen readers.
6) We provide disclaimer on the website so the website provides a way for the reader to contact you, if they are having issues using the website. This is in accordance with the ADA guidelines.
7) Navigation widget can be added to the website – however it does come with issues of its own .

Contact us so we help you.