DESIGNING YOUR PRACTICE WEBSITE

Practical Concerns First

Your website content should expand on the limited 120-character summary description a patient sees on Google which typically focuses on your specialty and location.

Your job is to immediately answer their most pressing questions. At minimum, I recommend every medical practice website include the following:

Your final implementation cost will depend on the platform, the scope of the project, whether you can do the whole job yourself, and who you hire. Your choices will also affect what you pay year over year.

A good place to start is a DIY solution — here's what to expect for website and domain hosting.

DIFFERENTIATE YOUR PRACTICE FROM YOUR COMPETITORS

I'll be honest, I deliberately downplay design as a core concern for medical practices, because outside of cosmetic specialties, design is simply not top of mind for most patients seeking a physician.

In a competitive market, the primary role of design is to differentiate your practice website from your competitors and keep you top of mind.

I always start by reviewing competitor sites:

1. Look at competitors within a reasonable distance from your potential patients.
2. Choose a mixture of peers and more established practice sizes.
3. Identify common elements across these sites (these are baseline expectations).
4. Find 1-2 visual elements that make them stand out.
5. Identify how they express their practice philosophy.

Differentiation should reflect authentic practice attributes, not an arbitrary design preference. Styles come and go and there's always the danger of chasing the shiny new thing.

After looking at your competitors, reflect on what separates your practice from them: in philosophy, approach, or patient experience.

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BE SUBTLE

When everyone has Dr. Google on their phone, your visual identity has to subtly balance professional authority with approachability. A patient needs to feel comfortable enough to initiate the consultation that will tell them whether you're the right fit.

As a professional, you don't bring your whole self to work, but there are subtle signals that communicate where you fit in the broader spectrum of practice types.

Color

CColors in your website, office environment, or clothing have cultural connotations with gender, temperature, and nature. The key is not to follow stereotypes but to find colors that are not claimed by competitors and are aligned with how you want your practice to be perceived.

• ‍Webflow Article On Color Meanings

SHAPE

Shapes with rounded corners are perceived as softer to the touch than ones with hard sharp corners. Softness suggests approachability even in a purely visual context of a website's graphic style. This is similar to the bouba-kiki effect — a non-arbitrary association between certain speech sounds and shapes.

• NY Times Article On Kiki-Bouba Effect

• Wikipedia Article On Bouba/kiki Effect

Typography

The perception of shapes in typefaces carries the association of soft or sharp at a microscopic level that's still perceptible. Often the association is contextual, with certain font styles seen as more corporate vs trendy or luxurious.

• Book by Sarah Hyndman on Why Fonts Matter

SAMPLE WEBSITE APPROACHES

The interplay between color, shapes and typefaces in terms of spacing, as well as the actual visual and written content give you variables that can be tweaked for different emphasis while still working within the constraints of a medical practice website.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

There are good reasons that small business websites gravitate towards simplicity:

• Complex overlays that work on laptops and phones require more labor than a clean layout.
• Illustrations take time to commission, art direct, and execute to a good level of quality.
• Magazine-quality interiors and environmental portraiture need professional lighting setups.

This doesn't mean your website has to look like a template even if you don't spend a lot of money. An experienced designer knows how to customize a template without reinventing the wheel. There are ways to be smart about sourcing your content and streamlining the design process. Here are two tips to start you off:

Your phone can do a lot. Modern phones can take high-quality headshots against a simple background that will more than do the job.

Start with snapshots. Few people start with their final imagery, and it's good practice to take a few quick photos to rough out an idea for yourself or to give a designer a sense of your goals and what images need to be sourced.

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ENHANCED FEATURES (COMPREHENSIVE WEBSITE)

Automating processes that are currently done manually or on paper can be a genuine timesaver for both you and your patients. Who doesn't appreciate the convenience of scheduling, filling out intake forms, managing bills, or viewing lab results on their phone? Telehealth is a major aspect of some specialties like psychiatry and a fallback that patients of pediatricians or primary care physicians really appreciate.

PRICE FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS FIRST

These features come at a real cost. Before you choose a platform or commit to any development work, I'd encourage you to determine which functions are essential for your specific practice and price them out.

TRY BEFORE BUYING

Implementation varies significantly across platforms. Many platforms started as one specialized service and bolted on features through acquisitions of competitors. The quality of the integration is hard to evaluate from reviews or demos. Take any opportunity to test drive the platform.

THREE KEY TOUCHPOINTS

There are three major touchpoints worth automating for both you and your patients' convenience, either as independent services or in various combinations:

PATIENT CONVENIENCE

Consider these additional EHR features based on your practice needs:

2026 EHR VENDOR PRICING

Not all vendors are completely transparent about their pricing. You will have to consult with your peers, dig into online forums like Reddit, and compare quotes tailored to your practice.

Here's what to expect:

• Implementation fees ($1,000–$5,000)
• Monthly expenses for EHR vendors range from $100 to $700.
• If they handle billing, their percentage ranges from 5.7% to 8.1%.
• Credit card companies will also take a cut for payment processing.

The vendors below are grouped by their lowest published or user-reported base pricing. Keep in mind that features vary widely and are often tailored to particular specialties.

HIPAA COMPLIANCE

Using a standard website or Google form for some patient communications is less expensive than going with a full-service vendor, but I can't stress this enough: you must maintain strict HIPAA compliance if you're collecting any patient information.

Most website builders (Squarespace, Wix, etc.) are NOT HIPAA-compliant by default. I'd strongly advise against collecting protected health information through their standard contact forms. Legal opinions on whether health information initially provided by a patient is compliant vary, and that ambiguity should give you pause.

Here are a few ways to keep your data collection HIPAA compliant:

• Use your EMR's patient portal for all clinical information.
• Implement a separate HIPAA-compliant form solution.
• Provide downloadable PDF forms that patients bring to appointments.
• Clearly separate marketing communications from clinical information.

Additional Information

• HHS HIPAA Laws & Regulations
• HIPAA Guide to Compliant Website

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