Department of HHS Dear Colleague Letter: Guidance and Resources for Electronic Information Technology: Ensuring Equal Access to All Health Services and Benefits Provided Through Electronic Means

Websites

Websites operated by covered entities constitute EIT, and health programs and activities offered through websites must comply with the nondiscrimination provisions discussed above. These websites may include, but are not limited to, patient web portals, e-prescriptions, and personal health tools. In the preamble to the rule implementing Section 1557, OCR provided an example of the application of Section 1557 to a health program or activity that uses a website: “a Health Insurance Marketplace^SM creating a Website for application for health insurance coverage must ensure that individuals with disabilities have an equal opportunity to benefit from the Website’s tool that allows comparison of health insurance coverage options, quick determination of eligibility, and facilitation of timely access to health insurance coverage by making its new Web site accessible….”⁸ Covered entities that use websites should consider following the widely accepted industry standard for web accessibility in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.⁹ The WCAG 2.0 AA standards delineate ways in which web content can be made more accessible to people with a range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.