In this episode of We Are, Marketing Happy, Jenny breaks down HHS’s new accessibility rule and what it means for healthcare organizations. With compliance deadlines approaching in 2026 and 2027, it’s essential to understand who’s affected, what WCAG 2.0 AA standards require, and how to assess your website, kiosks, and mobile apps for compliance.
Jenny shares steps for getting started, including a free accessibility scan and ways to approach necessary updates. While enforcement remains uncertain, prioritizing accessibility will result in a better experience for all patients and showcase your brand’s commitment to inclusivity.
Resources & Notes
HHS Accessibility Rule Fact Sheet
Design Guide Based on WCAG Principles
Figma plug-ins are also available for additional accessibility checkpoints. However, automated tools only go so far. Having a designer and developer who understand accessibility best practices is the most reliable way to ensure compliance.
Connect with Jenny:
Email: jenny@hedyandhopp.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
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Jenny: Hi friends, welcome to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. A healthcare Marketing podcast. I am your host, Jenny Bristow, and I’m also the CEO and founder at Hedy & Hopp, a full-service, fully healthcare marketing agency. I am jazzed to be with you today to talk a little bit about HHS’s new accessibility rule. Now, I use the word new kind of in quotes because it isn’t new as of the last week or even the last few months.
But it feels new to a lot of folks because the deadlines are coming up relatively quickly in 2026 and 2027, and we have seen lots of organizations popping up offering accessibility fixes, trying to charge health care providers and payors to fix the accessibility on their website.
And so I wanted to create an episode that walked through what the laws or the rulings actually are talking about, what that means for you as a healthcare marketer, and steps you can do to really make sure you understand if or if not, your organization is in compliance and how you can get there. So the easiest way to be able to protect your organization is through knowledge.
So let’s jump in. So Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights, which those are our friends that issued the HIPAA ruling that the whole healthcare marketing industry felt shockwaves from in December of 2022. They also did a ruling specifically around accessibility. So a little bit of background, ADA had requirements around accessibility, meaning web accessibility.
So HHS is ruling basically saying, listen, if you receive federal funding in healthcare, you need to start meeting this level of compliance. So we’re going to cover a couple of different things. First. Who does it impact? Number two, what does that mean? And number three, what should you do? So let’s make it really straight to the point and clear.
First, who does it impact? So any hospital, healthcare provider, or entity that cares for people that participate in Medicare or Medicaid. Medicare Advantage plans like HMOs or PPOs, prescription drug plan sponsors and Medicare Advantage drug plans. Human or social services agencies or insurers who are participating in the marketplace and receiving premium tax credit. So basically, if you’re doing anything within Medicare, Medicaid, or receiving any sort of federal grants, this applies to you.
So most of our hospital friends and providers, this is going to apply to you whether you are a small critical access hospital or a larger regional provider. You need to pay attention to this and have your eye on the ball. What does it mean? So the full text, actually, I take that back. It’s not the full text.
There’s a one-pager that HHS created that summarizes the ruling. So we’re going to link to that and said it links out to the full text. But in the show notes, that should be an easy way for you to be able to begin sharing within your organization if you do need to make some changes. So one-pagers in the show notes.
But what it does is it says that if you receive federal funding in the health care space, your website needs to have WCAG 2.0 AA level of compliance. Now, that level of compliance basically is a very clear way to say what you need to do for people with disabilities to access your content. So, if you’re using a screen reader, for example, can they access your content as easily as somebody that is not using an accessibility device so it’s just a level of compliance that makes it very clear and defines exactly what compliance means versus just generally saying make it easy.
So WCAG 2.0 AA is a level of compliance that was created by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. This is a nonprofit that was created back in the mid 90s in order to ensure the internet would work for everyone. So, it’s, globally accepted level of compliance. Any web developer or marketing agency should clearly understand what that level of compliance means.
Deadlines. So deadlines are May 10th, 2026, for organizations with 15 or more employees. And May 10th, 2027 for organizations with less than 15 employees. So clock is ticking. I’m recording this at the beginning of April 2025. So at this point, you have a year to get under compliance, or two years, depending on the size of your organization.
And it does not just impact your website. It also impacts things like kiosks or mobile apps that your organization either has created or references. Even if a third party created that for you. If that is part of your organization’s regular communication with patients, you need to make sure that the vendor enhances it. To have this level of compliance.
Now, there are exceptions which you can read about in the full text. Things such as archived web content or old social media posts. You don’t have to go through and fix every piece of content that exists on the internet for your organization. They really just want to make sure that the core content that prospective patients and patients need to access works well for them.
Key areas of noncompliance. If you’re not familiar with WCAG 2.0 AA, what we’re looking for is making sure that things like font sizes are large enough for people to read. There’s alt text for all images on your site, so if somebody cannot see an image, let’s say they’re using an accessibility device like a screen reader. There’s alt text in the code that says and explains what that photo or image is representing and showing, and things like color contrast.
So making sure that, for example, you don’t have, you know, yellow text on a white background that’s extremely hard for people to read. And so there’s a whole host of things, but those are some of the most common areas that you need to worry about. So what do you do? How do you even understand? You know, if you do fall within those levels you, you know, our provider or payor, and so you for sure need to comply.
How do you understand how far off you are from compliance? Well, we are huge fans here at Hedy & Hopp but empowering folks to take these first couple of steps themselves. So there’s a tool that we love called accessiBe. And now another link, on the show notes is going to be directly to their website. They have a free scanning tool where you could enter your website in, and you’re not giving them any access to the back into your website.
They’re just doing a front end scan. And with that front end scan, what they’re going to do is access your site and understand how far off you are from that level of compliance. It will give you a checklist of things you need to focus on, and it will give you a score, based off of each of the categories and then your site holistically of what you need to do in order to improve your accessibility.
Now, does this mean you need to throw out, you know, your entire site and start over? Well, it depends on how bad your score is. But for the vast majority of organizations, absolutely not. Your designer and developer, either internally or with the agency you partner with, should create this scan and then they should have a project plan in place to begin tackling these different areas to get you to a level of compliance on your current website.
Now, if you’re in the process of doing a new website anyway, awesome. Make sure that the new designs and development matches this level of compliance, and you’ll be good to go. But if you don’t have a new website scheduled until, let’s say, 2028 or later, work on improving your current site. Create a checklist. Begin working through it, making sure that you’re matching that level of compliance.
And you’ll be good to go. The other thing that you can do is in some situations, you’re allowed to create an alternate conforming version. So let’s say, for example, an app that was developed is just impossible for whatever reason or is fine to actually, you know, not something obtainable for your organization to update. You have the ability to create an alternate conforming version for people with screen readers or disabilities to use to access that same level of information.
So fix the original rebuild from scratch, or create an alternate conforming version. You can decide what the best path is for your organization based off of what your score is from that free scan and the climb you have to do in order to fix all of those areas. So, again, I’m putting all of these resource links in the show notes.
But my biggest takeaway is there’s going to be a lot of fear-mongering and marketing over the next year from folks saying, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you have to get this. Deadlines are looming, and yes, you do. But this is something that you can be pragmatic about and really make sure that you’re doing it, in an organized and consistent fashion over the next year to reach the level of compliance.
And I will say with the elephant in the room, HHS, staff was just totally gutted. So will this guidance even be enforced? Who knows? Who knows, friends? But I will say as a, you know, huge fan of doing things that are in the patient’s best interest, even when no one is looking. This truly is a level of compliance that is in patient’s best interests.
Right? If your organization is, you know, committed to making sure that you are offering services and are accessible to people, to everybody within your community, this is something you should be doing, whether somebody is going to be coming down and enforcing it on you or not. So again, all of the links are in the show notes.
If you have any questions, of course, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to answer any specific questions directly, but hopefully this gave you a really good 101, of what is happening in the accessibility space and key steps that you can do to move your organization towards compliance in an organized fashion. So thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy.
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Cheers!
