Medical practice websites now have a federal accessibility deadline.
If your practice accepts Medicare or Medicaid, a federal rule requires your website, patient forms and posted documents to work for patients with disabilities. PlainView Access tests them, repairs them and keeps them that way, at a fixed price.
- May 11, 2027
- for practices with 15 or more employees
- May 10, 2028
- for practices with fewer than 15 employees
Dates set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Section 504. The standard is WCAG 2.1 Level AA. The rule in plain terms
What a screen reader announces
A patient who cannot see the screen hears each link, image and button read aloud. This is one row of a practice home page.
As many sites are built
After repair
- “Request an appointment, link.”
- “Patient portal, link.”
- “Map to our Westerville office, image.”
- “New patient forms, link.”
- “Search, button.”
In our scan of 116 Ohio practice websites, 66 had links with no name for a screen reader to announce.
What we found on 116 Ohio practice websites
In November 2026 we ran automated accessibility checks on the public pages of 116 Ohio medical practice websites: 682 pages and 444 PDFs in all. We do not name the practices.
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110 of 116
sites had at least one failure that an automated check can detect.
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91 of 116
sites had text too faint against its background to meet the contrast standard.
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66 of 116
sites had links with no name for a screen reader to announce.
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177 of 444
PDFs had no tags, the structure a screen reader needs to read a document in order.
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28 of 28
sites that run an accessibility widget still had failures an automated check could detect.
Method: automated checks with axe-core against WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA on up to six pages per site, plus a structural check of the PDFs those pages link to. Automated checks detect only some kinds of barriers. A manual review finds more.
Tested the way patients use it
Software finds some barriers in seconds. The rest only show up when a person uses the site the way a patient with a disability does. Every job gets both.
By software
Every page is run through an open-source rule engine that catches coded failures such as missing descriptions, unlabeled fields and low contrast.
By keyboard
A person finds a provider, requests an appointment and completes each form using only the keyboard.
By screen reader
The same tasks are repeated with NVDA and VoiceOver, listening to what a patient who cannot see the screen hears.
Documents too
Every PDF the site links to is checked for tags, readable text and reading order, then repaired, converted, archived or removed.
How the work goes
A single-location practice site takes 21 calendar days from signed scope to handoff.
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Test
We scan every page. Then a person tests each page template and each patient task by keyboard alone, with screen readers and at 200% zoom.
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Repair
We fix the site where it stands, or rebuild it when that is faster. Forms patients still use become accessible web forms. Each posted document is repaired, archived or removed.
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Prove
We retest everything, then hand you a dated report of what was tested, what was fixed and what remains.
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Maintain
A Care plan scans the site every month, checks it by hand every quarter and makes new documents accessible within one or two business days.
What you hold when we finish
Fixing the site is half the job. The other half is being able to show what was done, to an owner, an attorney or a regulator.
- A dated conformance report: what was tested, how, and the result
- An exception register that records every document left as is, and the rule exception relied on
- A one-page summary written for the practice owners
- A file of the accessibility reports we requested from your patient portal and scheduling vendors
- An accessibility statement, and a way for patients to request any document in a form they can use
- A recorded 60-minute training for the staff who post to the site
After handoff, the Care plan
A site drifts as staff post new files and vendors change their tools. The Care plan is the monthly work that keeps it at the standard. It starts at $249 a month.
- A daily watch for newly posted documents that lack tags
- A monthly scan of every page, with new failures repaired and a short report
- A check by keyboard and screen reader every quarter
- A document desk that returns new files accessible in one or two business days
- A fresh conformance report and updated statement every year
- Notice when the rule or its dates change
Questions practices ask first
Does the rule apply to us?
It applies to health care providers that receive federal funds through the Department of Health and Human Services. That includes Medicare and Medicaid payments. It covers websites, mobile apps, online forms and posted documents.
Your attorney can confirm which date applies to your practice. The rule in plain terms, or read the current dates in the Federal Register.
We have an accessibility widget. Are we covered?
A widget adds a toolbar on top of a site. It does not repair the pages underneath. In our scan, 28 practice sites ran a widget, and all 28 still had failures an automated check could detect.
In April 2025 the Federal Trade Commission approved an order requiring one widget vendor to pay $1 million over claims that its product could make any website compliant. Read the FTC announcement. We do not install widgets.
Our patient portal belongs to a vendor. Is that our problem?
The rule covers what a practice provides directly and what it provides through a vendor. Of the 116 sites we scanned, 86 send patients to an outside portal, scheduling or forms tool.
We cannot change a vendor's product. We ask each vendor for its accessibility conformance report, file the answers and tell you plainly where the gaps are.
Do we have to rebuild our website?
Usually not. If the site runs on a platform we can edit, we repair it in place and it looks the same afterward. A rebuild only makes sense for a small or out-of-date site, where it is faster than repair, and it is covered by the same price.
How long does it take?
21 calendar days for a single-location practice and 35 for a practice with several locations, counted from the day we have access to the site. Your time is a 30-minute call and a few decisions about documents.
Do all of our old PDFs have to be fixed?
No. The rule excepts documents posted before your deadline, unless patients still use them to apply for or receive care. Intake and consent forms are the usual ones that must be dealt with. The five exceptions.
Fixed prices, published
One price covers testing, repair, documents and the written record. Larger sites get a fixed quote before any work begins.
Small
$3,900
A single-location practice.
- Delivery
- 21 calendar days
Standard
$8,900
A practice with several locations.
- Delivery
- 35 calendar days
Large
From $14,500
A large group. Fixed quote after the Snapshot.
- Delivery
- 45 to 60 days
Care plans start at $249 a month. A full assessment on its own is $1,950, credited toward a package signed within 30 days.
Start with your own site
A Snapshot is a free one-page report on your practice website: the deadline that applies, the three most serious barriers we found and the state of your posted documents.