If you’re a direct primary care doctor, hormone doctor, or concierge doctor would you invest in a professional website? This means not just having a website but also making sure it has all the elements of effective healthcare websites. In a recent blog, we discussed how a custom website can benefit your practice. Will you want your direct primary care practice’s website design to resemble those of magnet facilities and top healthcare organizations or providers? Then you may want to add more than just the basic elements.
Read our blog on Why Healthcare Marketing Should Include Custom Websites to review these beyond-the-basic elements that most hospital and medical websites of the industry would have.
It’s all about the user experience. We know how big of a role patient experience and patient satisfaction would play in today’s healthcare marketing. Patients demand a website design that’s mobile-friendly, user-friendly, easy to navigate, and has social media elements.
Here are the basic rules to follow with web development or web redesign for healthcare providers.
Website Design for Healthcare Providers
A = Accessible
So, how do you make your website accessible?
Use health literacy principles, like plain language, in developing content for your blogs. As a result, your content will be readable and understandable to patients who are not health literate.
Here are other ways to make your blogs accessible to those without any medical background or health knowledge:
- Use layman’s terms and define medical terms when used
- Write in an active voice, not passive
- Use short sentences instead of long ones
- Limit the number of information used
If you’re an ophthalmologist, who specializes in color blindness, make sure your graphics would accommodate your patient population. Make it simple to navigate even for those who are not technologically-savvy. Ensure that your fonts are large enough to be readable by broad age groups.
Here’s a blog on why your website should be accessible for more helpful tips.
B = Brand-worthy
What kind of image does your medical group want to portray?
If you’re a hormone doctor, you may want to show your authority by discussing signs and symptoms and post tons of informative blogs that would help explain your typical patients’ conditions.
Read this blog and understand how establishing your authority could impact your brand.
Your website design can also make or break patient appointments. A haphazardly-done website may make your patients doubt your authority. Will they also receive the same kind of treatment during the consult? You may want to opt for a medical website that looks uncluttered, streamlined, clean, and professional to reflect on how you conduct your practice. You can choose a white background with plenty of white spaces. Choose photos that are clear and crisp. Make each page work for whatever purpose you created it for.
C = Content-Driven
What kind of content would you like to appear on your home page?
Early on, the information architecture of your website should trickle in an organized fashion.
Highlight the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, and why) of your practice on the front page. Then elaborate on it on the succeeding pages. But don’t overdo the need for button clicking. This can impact loading time and may make your potential patients navigate away.
In this blog, we discussed some content ideas for your blogs. In developing content, you can also use the strategy described in the Storybrand Program. This will guide you through a seven-step formula on how to create content that supports your marketing campaign.
Creating engaging content goes beyond blogs and vlogs. Read our blog on Using Digital Marketing to Boost Patient Engagement and learn other strategies on how you can create engaging content. This would include conducting patient satisfaction surveys, asking for their input in advisory councils and safety committee, and getting patient feedback.
D = Dynamic
How often did you wish that your primary health care provider’s website could book, change, or cancel appointments? Or, if you work for a concierge doctor, how often did you wish that you can send reminder emails and text messages, or send prescription digitally to your patient’s pharmacy? Many websites today have patient portals that provide means for patients to view their laboratory results and even communicate with their providers with secure emails.
In the last decade, we’ve seen a rise in the use of smartphones at 81%. Most adults (51%) would read about health information online. So, the demand for a dynamic website has increased. The more functionality the medical website offers, the more value the patients find in it. That’s why websites have played significant roles in marketing and advertising medical practices.
Keep in Mind Your State’s Rules on Website Design for Healthcare Providers
However, knowing these ABCDs is not enough. Unlike many other websites, a healthcare provider’s website must adhere to specific rules and professional standards.
For example, in Texas, there exists an administrative code that lists the kind information that doctors are allowed to advertise on their websites.
Providers can advertise:
- The practice’s name
- Where they are located
- Their hours of operation
- Their fees for services and products they provide
- What type of insurance they accept or payment mode
- The services they offer
- The kind of equipment they use
- The tests they can do for diagnosis
- How many practitioners they have
- How many staff members they have
- The credentials of their providers
- The rates of success and complications as accurately as possible
- How many patients they’ve treated for a given condition
- Which hospitals they are affiliated with
Because the profession is highly regulated, the Medical Practice Act serves as guidance for providers to know what advertisements are prohibited and allowed on their websites. For more information on advertising restrictions, please visit the Texas Medical Association’s website for your guidance.
With the many nuances attached to building and maintaining a website, many medical practices now opt to hire third-party experts to do this, so they can focus on their medical expertise.
We Can Help with Website Design for Healthcare Providers
What about you? Do you think it’s wise to invest in a professional-looking custom website? Schedule your free review here, and we’ll show you the website design that works for your practice.
Resources:
https://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=2092&terms=advertising%20prohibition%20testimonial
https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/
https://www.pewinternet.org/2010/03/24/health-information/
