Healthcare web development in Alabama, built with patients and privacy in mind
Patients come to your website when they're worried, in a hurry, or both. They need to find a provider, a location, or a phone number, and they need the site to work with whatever assistive technology they use. We build and support Drupal and WordPress sites for healthcare organizations across Alabama, with accessibility and privacy designed in from the start.
What makes healthcare web development different
A healthcare site isn't a brochure with a hospital photo on top. Some of the things it has to get right:
- People with disabilities are a core audience, not an edge case. Low vision, limited mobility, cognitive load from stress or medication: the people who most need care are often the ones a careless site shuts out.
- Privacy risks hide in the details. A contact form that asks about symptoms. A tracking pixel on an appointment page. Neither feels like a privacy decision when it's added, but both are.
- Information changes all the time. Providers join and leave, hours shift, services move between locations. If updating the site is hard, it falls out of date.
- Many systems are involved. Scheduling, patient portals, provider directories, and marketing tools all touch the website.
How we handle privacy
We're web developers, not your compliance officer, and we'll never tell you a website is "HIPAA compliant." Compliance is about your whole organization, its agreements, and its processes. What we do is make sure your tech stack uses tools on HIPAA-eligible plans with a signed BAA that integrate with your site, and that the website itself doesn't create avoidable risk:
- Keep protected health information out of the CMS. This is standard on our healthcare builds. When a form needs to collect sensitive details, we use form tools such as Formstack or Jotform, set up on HIPAA-eligible plans with a signed BAA, so that information never sits in Drupal or WordPress.
- Treat tracking with care. Because of privacy laws, we don't add tracking or analytics scripts by default, and anything added needs sign-off from your legal team first. We check that approved tracking works and give limited guidance once your legal team signs off, but we don't install it.
- Vet third-party vendors. Chat widgets, form tools, and scheduling or portal embeds get checked before they go on the site, including whether the vendor will sign a business associate agreement (BAA) where one is needed.
- Lock down access. Editor roles limited to what each person needs, strong authentication, and hosting with separate environments and backups. See Pantheon hosting and DevOps.
Your compliance team and legal counsel make the final calls. We make sure the technical side supports them.
Accessibility for patients and for regulators
We build to WCAG 2.1 Level AA, aim for WCAG 2.2, test as we go, and fix what's already there. We also build our own open-source accessibility tooling, dd_wcag, which we use to check color and type choices during design. If your organization receives federal financial assistance from HHS, its Section 504 rule requires your web content and mobile apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. In May 2026, HHS pushed the deadlines back a year: May 11, 2027 if you have 15 or more employees, and May 10, 2028 if you have fewer (see the HHS rule). A pending lawsuit challenges that extension, so these dates could change. This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice; check with your counsel about how it applies to you. Public hospitals and health systems may also fall under the ADA Title II rule.
See WCAG accessibility, or get a free WCAG audit of your current site.
What we build for healthcare teams
- Provider and location directories that editors can update without a developer, and patients can search by specialty, location, or name.
- Clear paths to the next step: call, book, find a location, or reach the portal, without hunting.
- Scheduling and patient portals, embedded the right way. For systems like Epic, we add the widgets and code the vendor provides, so patients can book or log in from your site while the vendor's system handles their data.
- Connections to the other tools you use, like secure forms and CRMs, built so sensitive data goes where it belongs. See API integrations.
- Editorial workflows with review and approval steps, so clinical content gets checked before publishing.
We build on Drupal when the site has many locations, providers, or editors, and on WordPress when a simpler site fits. Afterward, a care plan keeps your CMS updated every quarter, with more coverage available as add-ons.
Case study: a clearer path to care for a regional healthcare provider. A regional healthcare provider had outgrown its legacy Drupal site, and patients, families, community members, partners, and donors were all trying to find their way through one complicated experience. We mapped the journeys each of those audiences takes, directed the design, and handled all of the development, moving the site up two major Drupal versions with zero downtime. The new site works well on any device and was built to accessibility standards from the start. After launch, traffic rose about 20% and time on site rose about 40%. Read the full case study
FAQ
Can you make our website HIPAA compliant?
No website can be HIPAA compliant on its own, and we'd be wary of anyone who says otherwise. HIPAA covers your organization's policies, agreements, and practices. We make sure your tech stack uses tools on HIPAA-eligible plans with a signed BAA, like Formstack or Jotform, that integrate with your site. We also keep sensitive data out of the CMS and support your compliance program.
Do you work with practices, or only large health systems?
Both. We work with small, medium, and large healthcare organizations. The right approach depends on the project, and we'll scope it to fit.
Can you work with our compliance or IT team?
Yes. We'd much rather review decisions with them early than hand over a finished site for approval at the end.
We're in Alabama. Do you work on-site?
If you're looking for a medical website developer in Birmingham, we're close by. We're based in Chelsea, just south of the city, and work with healthcare organizations across Alabama, including the Birmingham and Montgomery areas, mostly remotely. Whether we meet on-site depends on your location and the scope of the project.
Start with what's on your site today
Tell us about your organization and your site. You'll hear back from a developer, not a sales team. Or run a free WCAG audit first to see how it holds up for patients who rely on assistive technology.
This page is general information, not legal advice.