Why most medical practice websites lose patients
Patients searching for a new doctor, dentist, or therapist are evaluating you on trust signals in the first three seconds. Slow load, mobile layout that breaks, dated stock photos, no real doctor bios, no online booking, every one of those costs you a new patient. And a sloppy contact form that emails unencrypted patient information back to your office staff is a HIPAA exposure waiting to happen.
I build medical practice sites that load in under a second on a phone, show real photos of your providers and your office, use Physician/MedicalBusiness schema so Google can surface your team in search results, and route intake forms through a HIPAA-aware path (or skip them entirely in favor of a phone call, sometimes the right answer). And every site I ship is built and tested against WCAG 2.1 AA, which serves more patients. I do not certify compliance, and no automated scan can.
What I build for medical practices
Appointment booking
Integrate with whatever your practice management software offers, Dentrix, Open Dental, Practice Fusion, Athena, Epic MyChart, Zocdoc. Or a custom request-an-appointment flow if a real-time integration isn't worth it.
HIPAA-aware intake forms
Patient information in forms is PHI. I use encrypted transport, route to a HIPAA-compliant inbox (your practice software's secure messaging, or a dedicated form provider with a BAA), and never store PHI on the website server.
Provider bios with schema
Each doctor, dentist, or clinician gets a Physician schema entry with credentials, specialties, languages, photo, and bio. Google's AI Overview and rich results pick this up, patients see your team before they click.
Built to WCAG 2.1 AA
Color contrast, keyboard navigation, screen-reader labels, alt text on every image, semantic headings. The standard California and federal guidance point at, and surprisingly often missing on agency sites.
Insurance + payment transparency
Searchable insurance accepted list, payment options, and an honest "new patient" cost page if you offer self-pay. Transparency converts, patients who don't see it call your competitors.
Local SEO + GBP for "dentist near me"
Category-correct GBP setup, services list with pricing where appropriate, photo strategy, review-request flow, and on-page schema that aligns with how Google ranks medical local pack results.
Sonoma County medical practices I serve
I'm based in Santa Rosa and serve businesses across:
- Santa Rosa private practices and specialists
- Petaluma family medicine, dental, and chiropractic
- Sebastopol integrative medicine and therapy practices
- Windsor family dental and pediatric medicine
- Rohnert Park Sonoma State-adjacent student-facing practices
- Healdsburg, Cloverdale, and rural Sonoma County primary care
In-person meetings are easy when they help. Otherwise I work remotely with a daily-updated staging link you can show your team.
What it costs
- Single-provider practice website: $1,800. Up to ten pages: provider bio, services, booking, intake, insurance and GBP. Includes the All-Category Sentinel audit at launch, a $499 report, $0 due.
- Multi-provider practice / clinic: $3,500. Up to twenty pages: per-provider pages, departmental services and location pages. Includes All-Category plus Plan Conformance on the pages I build.
- + Custom patient portal: add $8,000 to $25,000 if your PMS doesn't already include one.
- Monthly care: $79 to $299 a month. Hosting and updates on Host, or Local and Grow which add edits, SEO, GEO and AEO monitoring, and a scheduled re-audit. 14 day cancel, and you keep the files.
Every quote is fixed-price. See full pricing detail at my pricing page.
Medical practice web design FAQs
Are your websites HIPAA-compliant?
The website itself doesn't need to be HIPAA-compliant, what handles patient health information (PHI) does. I design intake flows so PHI never touches the website server: forms route directly to your HIPAA-compliant inbox, your practice software's secure messaging, or a dedicated forms provider that signs a BAA with you. I can also walk you through what a BAA is and which vendors offer one.
Will my website work with my practice management software?
Almost certainly. I've integrated with Dentrix, Open Dental, Practice Fusion, Athena, Epic MyChart, Zocdoc, and most major systems. If yours offers an embed widget or an iframe-able booking page, I make it look native to your site. If it doesn't, I build a request-an-appointment form that routes appointments to your front desk.
Will the site meet ADA and WCAG?
I build every site to WCAG 2.1 AA and audit it against that standard before launch: color contrast, keyboard navigation, screen-reader labels, alt text, semantic HTML. For medical practices serving the public this is both required by law in California and a meaningful conversion factor (older patients use screen readers more than agencies expect).
What that does and does not mean. My accessibility and privacy reports are automated audits with citations. They are not a law firm opinion, not a VPAT, and not a guarantee of compliance. I build to the standard and show you the evidence. If you need a manual WCAG review or a formal VPAT, that is a separate piece of work and I will quote it.
How do I get to the top of "dentist near me" or "family doctor [city]" searches?
Three things: Google Business Profile optimization (categories, services, hours, photos, reviews), location-specific landing pages with proper schema, and review velocity. The first two I handle in the build. Reviews are on you, but I set up a post-visit review-request flow your front desk can send in one tap.
Can you build a custom patient portal?
Yes, but usually I recommend against it. Most practice management software includes a patient portal, and rolling your own means you're now responsible for HIPAA, PHI storage, and authentication security. If your PMS portal genuinely doesn't fit, I'll quote it, typically $8,000 to $25,000, but I'll always evaluate the off-the-shelf options first.
Do you write the content (provider bios, service descriptions)?
I can. Most practices prefer to draft their own provider bios (you know your team) while I polish for SEO and tone. Service descriptions I usually write from a 30-minute interview with the lead clinician. Content is included in the base price for sites up to ~10 pages; large content projects (50+ pages) are quoted separately.