There Is Now A Date On This

The deadline moved. The duty didn't.

The Risk page is about the odds of being sued, and the ADA & HIPAA page lays out all four rules together. This page is about just one of them — the one with a date attached. If your practice bills Medicare or Medicaid, there is already a federal rule that covers your website. And it comes with a date on it, not a maybe.

An empty exam lane with a chair and phoropter, ready for the next patient. — Both dates land while this lane is still booking patients. The dates moved back a year. The duty never paused.

Short answer

Is there a legal deadline for website accessibility in healthcare?

Yes — for practices that take federal health care money, which for most means Medicare or Medicaid. A federal rule published in May 2024 gives websites and apps a deadline: May 11, 2027 if you have 15 or more employees, and May 10, 2028 if you have fewer. Whether your particular practice is covered is a legal question for your own lawyer.

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May 11, 2027 — if you have 15 or more employees
May 10, 2028 — if you have fewer than 15
The rule names one version of the accessibility standard; we build to the newer one, which covers it
Whether it covers you depends on taking federal health care money

If you have 15 or more employees

—days left

Your website must meet the standard by May 11, 2027

If you have fewer than 15

—days left

Your website must meet the standard by May 10, 2028

It already took effect.

Health and Human Services published the rule in May 2024 and it took effect that July. For the first time, it set an actual technical standard for the websites and apps of anyone taking federal health care money.

Headcount sets your date — not whether you're covered.

The 15-employee line decides when you have to comply, not whether. A practice with eight staff that takes Medicaid is covered. It just has until 2028. The government has said Medicare Part B payments alone are enough to bring you in — and its own analysis of the rule estimates 92% of doctors take federal health care money.

The extension bought time — and it is being contested.

In May 2026 the government pushed both dates back a year, after providers said they could not make them. The duty itself never paused, the government still enforces it, and the law also lets a patient sue you directly. On top of that, the extension was challenged in federal court on May 21, 2026, with the plaintiffs asking for the original dates back. No ruling yet — but the original date for larger practices, May 11, 2026, has already passed. Where the rules stand →

Two things we won’t blur about the rule

Two things we won't blur. First, the rule names one version of the accessibility standard. It also allows anything that does the same job or better. That is why we build to the newer version — it covers everything in the one they name, so you are not redoing this work when they update the reference. Second, whether your practice actually takes federal health care money is a legal question, and this rule defines that more narrowly than some other health laws do. Most practices that bill Medicare or Medicaid will be covered. Check your own status with a healthcare lawyer. We can tell you how your website measures up. We cannot tell you what the law requires of you.

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Two Standards, Both New

One is a rule you can be measured against. The other is a habit patients just changed.

In 2024 the Department of Justice adopted WCAG 2.1 AA as the standard for website accessibility, and said so again in 2026. That is the yardstick courts now use. The bar moved, and almost no existing practice website clears it.

Split image: a phone showing a Google search for eyecare beside a monitor where an AI assistant answers the same question. — One standard is written down. The other is just where patients started asking.

ADA / Accessibility

Built before the standard existed.

This is not a guess. Researchers tested the eye department homepages of every Canadian university and found accessibility errors on all fifteen. A second study did the same with the 38 top-ranked U.S. eye hospitals and found the same thing. If the best-funded eyecare websites in North America fail, the question is not whether yours does.

100%

of the ophthalmology homepages in a 2025 peer-reviewed study had accessibility errors — every one tested

Getting named by AI

Invisible to the new front door.

Being found by ChatGPT, Google's AI and Perplexity runs on a completely different set of rules — hidden labels in the code, answers written in a form AI can repeat, and proof of who you are. Almost no practice website is built for it yet.

Almost 0

practice sites optimized for AI search today

Questions, Answered

More on this page’s topic

Which accessibility standard does the federal rule name?

It names WCAG 2.1 Level AA. That is the national rulebook for making a website usable by people with disabilities. We build to WCAG 2.2 AA, the newer version, which includes every check in 2.1 AA. So meeting ours also meets theirs.

Does the Section 504 deadline apply to my practice?

It depends on whether your practice takes federal health care money. For most practices that means Medicare or Medicaid. That is a legal question about your specific practice, and this rule defines it more narrowly than some other health laws do. Ask your lawyer, not a scanner.

What if my practice is not covered by Section 504?

The ADA still covers the website of any business open to the public. That risk has no deadline attached — it starts whenever somebody complains. These federal dates simply add a firm deadline on top for the practices they cover. They are not what created the duty in the first place.

Is there an actual deadline, or just lawsuit risk?

Both, and they are different things. Being sued is a risk — it may or may not happen. A deadline is a date. The federal rule sets an accessibility standard for the website of anyone taking federal health care money, which reaches practices paid through Medicare and Medicaid. Your headcount sets your date, not whether the rule reaches you. A five-person practice taking Medicaid is covered, it just gets longer. Whether your practice counts is a legal question for your own lawyer.

The Date Is Fixed. Your Start Date Isn’t.

Two weeks to build. Two years is not as long as it sounds.

Independent practices only · $0 until you’re live · no contract · auto-updated monthly

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