Protecting Your Business series, Episode 1

Transcript

David (LegitScript):  Welcome everyone to our Protecting Your Business series, which features experts from LegitScript and our Compliance Collective partners to help healthcare, telehealth, and addiction treatment providers navigate what comes after certification — from accessibility and privacy to advertising rules that keep shifting. Each episode tackles a real operational risk and shows what it takes to manage it. Today, we're talking about accessibility and the misconceptions health care businesses commonly hold around it.

I'm David Khalaf, and for this episode, we're happy to welcome Michael Williams, who's a licensed attorney in California and Washington, DC, and is co-founder and CFO at Clym, a compliance platform that helps businesses better manage data privacy, web accessibility, and transparency requirements across more than one hundred and ninety regulations from one dashboard.

And Naomi Moono, an MBA who is Director of Strategy for LegitScript Certification, which gives businesses in highly regulated industries a way to prove legitimacy to major online platforms and payment processors, opening doors to advertising and payment access so that they can grow their business.

Let's jump right in with you, Michael, and talk a little bit about how companies often see accessibility and the responsibilities around it. So a lot of folks may think accessibility is really just a checkbox item that needs to be ticked off when building a business and then can be more or less forgotten. But that's not the case. Building and installing an accessibility widget or a plugin really just is not sufficient. Why is that the case?

Michael (Clym):  Sure, it's a good point and again thanks for having us join this episode. So many people, many companies, many providers do not know that accessibility laws exist for websites. They may know that it exists in the real world, in the tangible world but potentially not for websites but the same Americans with Disabilities Act requirements that exist in the real world also exist for anyone in the US with a website, right. So they and if they do know you're right they often treat it as a checkbox or checklist item and they will potentially take the first step of installing what's known as an accessibility widget on their website.

Now that's the kind of thing where you can change the look and feel of how a website displays to someone. Maybe you can make it, you can prove it for someone experiencing color blindness or epilepsy or dyslexia, those kinds of things. And that's a great first step, right? It's a but it's not the entire journey. It's just a first step.

If you want to truly make your website accessible, you have to complete certain additional steps. Ongoing auditing, remediation, you have to have a published website accessibility statement, those kinds of things will put you on the right side of compliance. Just to put this in perspective, two things. Number one, a couple of years ago there was an accessibility widget provider that had a seven figure multi million dollar settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for unlawful advertising which basically because they were over they were basically saying by installing this accessibility widget you are covered under the ADA.

That's just not the case. Right? So you have to take additional steps that a provider like Climb can help you with to make those steps. The other thing about this is very important.

This is an ever increasing area of litigation. So there is a small army of ambulance chasing plaintiffs attorneys that exist in the world that are increasingly filing ADA related lawsuits for against websites. So last year there were an estimated two hundred and fifty thousand demand letters initiating litigation against website owners in the US average settlements are about twenty to twenty five thousand dollars plus legal fees. You're talking about five or six billion dollars of legal settlements just for this one issue alone. In addition to that healthcare providers who receive funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services HHS will now have additional requirements on their websites in May of twenty twenty seven so they actually need to not just follow ADA but a heightened level of ADA which is called the WCAG or the web content accessibility guidelines. So again there's a lot of information out there, there's a lot of misunderstanding out there but that's why you know taking the steps working with a provider a trusted provider can assist in helping to avoid or mitigate those issues you may find from an ADA or WCAG violation.

David (LegitScript):  One of the other problems folks may have by using a widget or some kind of plug in piece of software is that they may think that they use that they plug it in and then their accessibility requirements are essentially done and they move on with all the other things that come with building a business but accessibility compliance requires ongoing attention right?

Michael (Clym):  That's exactly right. Think about working out. You work out one time, that's great but you're not gonna stay in shape if you work out one time you have to get to the continual thing. Now there are automations that technologies can assist with, there's you can type automated scanning If you make changes that they can detect those changes and maybe provide suggestions for making your website more accessible.

But again, it's not a moment in time issue.

And most compliance is almost no compliance is almost no compliance is a moment in time issue. It's always a continual thing and so having the right software and service providers for your website it is important to make sure that that's being monitored on an ongoing basis rather than just that individual moment in time.

David (LegitScript):  Yeah and speaking of that and sort of the changing and evolving nature of accessibility, trends in the U. S. Are impacted both by private litigation and also public regulatory enforcement, right? Tell us a little bit more about the trends that are shaping accessibility.

Michael (Clym):  Yeah, well again as I mentioned before that litigation that's occurring across the US it's expanding exponentially. Know it's at the the growth rate is something like thirty percent on a year over year basis and those lawsuits are expensive not just a twenty or twenty five thousand dollars settlement you might have five, ten, fifteen thousand dollars with the legal fees for an issue that you can solve that you can resolve for a much lower price point if you were took a proactive approach, right? This is the classic ounce of prevention versus pound of cure. If you take the ounce of prevention and put a little bit of work in on the front end to again improve the accessibility of your website, you will likely not face those kinds of repercussions on the back end.

And now not all and again, there's a federal law individual states have their own laws to California. California has an individual law other states do as well. So not only are you subject to that federal law but depending on where you're located you might be subject to state requirements as well and again it's not now it's not just the plaintiffs attorneys that are creating headaches for website operators it's also the regulators that are input there will be imposing fines. Another part about this you know as a website offer you want to make your site more accessible to either patients or consumers or whoever is visiting that site.

Number one is the right thing to do and number two it allows your site to be more navigable by those experiencing a disability, right? So you want there is, it's not, I'm an attorney, I talk a lot about like the stick of these things like what are the fines, what are penalties, are the violations but I think also specifically for LegitScript customers it's like you guys are serving a particular market and you wanna make this a more accessible and inclusive experience for your patients or your customers.

David (LegitScript):  Thanks. Yeah, let's bring LegitScript into the conversation. Naomi, let's talk a bit about how accessibility comes into play with LegitScript certification. Why is it an important consideration?

Naomi (LegitScript):  Yeah, great question, David. I would say accessibility is a really important consideration because in a lot of ways an inaccessible website could be considered a non transparent website. When we talk about transparency, it's not enough for information to just simply exist somewhere on the webpage. It needs to be presented in a way that all people can actually find it, they can understand it and they can engage with it.

So for example, a website may very clearly disclose its services, its pricing and provider information and privacy practices, but if someone can't navigate the page, they can't read the text, that information isn't actually really meaningful, is it? So that's where accessibility and transparency, I think really reinforce one another rather than just existing as these completely separate concepts. And then I also think that there's that broader human element that Michael was touching on. Legit script certification is really intended to support legitimate compliant providers by giving them an opportunity to demonstrate compliance, to build trust, to increase their visibility.

And those businesses, they deserve to be found and accessed by everyone. Equally importantly, if not more important, that every patient, like Michael said, deserves the ability to evaluate these businesses, to be able to understand the information that they're presenting and make an informed decision about the care that they're receiving. So to me, accessibility is important because it helps ensure that transparency is meaningful actually in practice. It's not just about checking that technical compliance box, it's about whether the information that a patient needs to be able to genuinely make an informed decision about their care is available to them in a way that they can feel confident taking that next step.

David (LegitScript):  Good, so let's make that a bit more concrete and look at say behavioral health and addiction treatment, help us understand how a poor accessibility on a website can impact a user's experience.

Naomi (LegitScript):  Yeah, I think that it's a great example to bring up specifically the behavioral health space because I think poor accessibility in that space really can have a negative impact because someone visiting a website might be reaching out during an incredibly vulnerable time of their lives. They could be in crisis looking for help for someone and someone they love, looking for substance use disorder treatment, and finally feeling ready to take that step that they might've been considering for quite a long time. So in that moment, even a really relatively small barrier can have a really major impact in those times.

If someone can't navigate the website, they can't complete an intake form or understand an intake video, they might give up on connecting with that care. And when someone is already, they're overwhelmed, they're anxious, they're uncertain about asking for help, again, even those small barriers can really have an impact and you don't want the website itself to create a reason to disengage. So I would also say that discretion matters, right? Someone may be using a shared or borrowed device, they might need to find information quickly without drawing attention to what they're looking for.

So you want that experience to be clear, to be private, to be low friction. They should be able to just really clearly understand the services that are offered, whether the providers can help them and how to make contact without having to navigate through confusing navigation or inaccessible content. And that's why, again, I really think that accessibility, and you'll hear me be a little bit redundant, but it goes so far beyond that technical compliance piece. It can directly impact whether a person is able to find, evaluate, and ultimately access the care that they need.

So again, for someone in that vulnerable moment, a more accessible experience can be the difference between them continuing to seek that care and giving up and walking away.

David (LegitScript):  Thanks. All really great information. That'll do it for this episode on accessibility. Naomi, Michael, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone else, stay tuned for our next episode.