Northshelf Accessibility audits (586) 217-0032Call us

For medical and dental practices

Get your practice's website ready for the HHS accessibility rule

We test your main pages against WCAG 2.1 AA, the standard the rule names. You get each problem in plain words, with the fix your web person needs.

$490 paid once

Order the audit Call (586) 217-0032

We answer the phone 8 AM to 6 PM Eastern, seven days a week.

  • Built on the rule's own text: 45 CFR 84.84, HHS's notices and fact sheet, and WCAG 2.1 with the W3C's techniques. Our checks have run on 6,793 health-care home pages.
  • Your main pages tested by software in a real browser: two rule engines, keyboard only, 200% zoom, phone width and text spacing. How we test
  • One person on our team goes through your home page and your appointment or contact form with the NVDA screen reader.
  • Every problem in plain words, with its fix for your web person, within 5 business days. See an example
  • Free rechecks for 90 days, as often as you ask, until our checks no longer find the problems in your report.
  • $490 once, and nothing repeats unless you ask for the $49 monthly checkup. No login, no patient information, nothing to install.

Stripe's secure checkout asks for your website address and an email for the report. We never see your card number. See a sample report first

Prefer an invoice? Call us, email hello@northshelfaudits.com or reply to our email, and we'll send one you can pay online.

Got our email? Reply "yes" for the details and a payment link, or ask for the full list of what our scan found. The list is free, with nothing to buy.

Whether the rule covers your practice is a question for your attorney. Nothing on this site is legal advice.

Example page

Example of a practice website with four accessibility problems marked 1 to 4 yourpractice.com Your Practice Family dentistry New patients Contact Gentle care for the whole family Request an appointment Full name Jordan Lee Request a visit f New patients welcome Date of birth 1 2 3 4 alt="Our front desk" New patients welcome Date of birth MM/DD/YYYY aria-label="Directions" 9:41 yourpractice.com Your Practice Family dentistry Gentle care for the whole family f New patientswelcome Request an appointment Full name Jordan Lee Date of birth Request a visit alt="Our front desk" New patientswelcome Request an appointment Full name Date of birth Jordan Lee MM/DD/YYYY Request a visit aria-label="Directions" 1 2 3 5 4
  1. The photo has no text alternative. A screen reader can't describe it, so a patient who can't see it misses what it shows. 1.1.1 Non-text Content, Level A
  2. The heading is too faint. Its contrast is 1.7 to 1. Text needs at least 4.5 to 1, or 3 to 1 if it's large. 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum), Level AA
  3. The date-of-birth field has no label. Its only label is gray hint text inside the box, which disappears as soon as someone starts typing. 1.3.1 Info and Relationships; 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions, Level A
  4. The icon links have no names. A screen reader reads out only "link" or the web address, so a patient can't tell the map from the phone number. 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context); 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value, Level A
A made-up practice page with common problems. Your report lists each problem we find on your own pages, on a computer screen and at phone width, says where it is and gives the fix.
  • 15 or more employees May 11, 2027
  • Fewer than 15 employees May 10, 2028
  • The standard WCAG 2.1 AA 50 success criteria, published by the W3C

Dates from 45 CFR 84.84, as amended by HHS on May 11, 2026 (91 FR 25496 in the Federal Register).

We test this website too. The latest automated check, on November 7, 2026, found no WCAG 2.1 A or AA failures on any of its pages or on the sign-in pages that open later, in light or dark mode. How we tested it

Who we are

A small Michigan company you can check before you pay

You may have had emails that threaten a lawsuit or push a widget. Here's who we are, so you can look us up first.

Who you'd be dealing with

  • Northshelf LLC, a small company in Clinton Township, Michigan. Our Michigan LLC ID is 900305608; look it up on the State of Michigan's business registry.
  • A person answers (586) 217-0032, 8 AM to 6 PM Eastern, seven days a week. Call before you order, or after your report arrives to go through it together. Relay calls through 711 are welcome.
  • Why our email came from another address: we send from several mailboxes that don't end in northshelfaudits.com, each signed with its own first name, not a staff name. Every one gives Northshelf LLC, our Clinton Township, Michigan postal address and this phone number. Our own address is hello@northshelfaudits.com.
  • We're a private company, not part of HHS or any government office, and we're not lawyers.

What we won't do

  • Ask for your website login, a password or patient information. We test the pages anyone can see.
  • Install a widget or change your website. Whoever runs your site makes the fixes.
  • Threaten you, or tell you your site passes the rule.
  • Sign you up for anything you didn't ask for.

How it works

What happens after you order

  1. The day you order

    You order

    Order online, call us, or reply "yes" to our email. We only need your website address and an email for the report.

  2. Business days 1 to 5

    We test your main pages and write the fixes

    Testing software checks each page. Every finding is checked, and its fix is written for your platform.

  3. By business day 5

    You get the report and the fix list

    We'll go through it with you on a call if you'd like.

  4. The next 90 days

    Free rechecks, as often as you ask

    Your web person or vendor makes the changes, and we check them again. Each updated report comes within 5 business days.

  5. After that, only if you ask

    The $49 monthly checkup

    The automated checks run again each month. It never starts by itself, and "cancel" stops it.

What you get

Each problem in plain words, with its fix

One finding from a real report. Every finding has plain words for you, and for your web person, where it is, how it was found and the code to fix it.

One of 40 findings in a real report

  • Serious
  • Impact on patients: high
  • Found by the keyboard check
  • On the practice's own site

Keyboard focus is invisible on almost every link, button and form field

For you

People who use a keyboard instead of a mouse can't see which link, button or form box they are on. The theme switches off the outline browsers draw and puts nothing in its place, so they lose their place on every page, forms included.

Fixed on the saved copy: focus was then visible at every one of the 177 keyboard stops we measured.

For your web person

Where
Every page, from the header and menu to the forms, sliders, footer and cookie notice. The cause is :focus{outline:0} in the child theme's stylesheet and outline:none in the slider's.
How found
Browser checks: a keyboard walk through each page, with a picture of every stop. Automated rules: IBM style_focus_visible (a possible failure, confirmed in the pictures). Reading the page code.
WCAG 2.1
2.4.7 Focus Visible; 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast (Level AA)
Where to fix it
WordPress: the child theme's style.css (Appearance > Theme File Editor), or Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS. Clear the cache afterwards.
Show the code, before and after

Before, in the child theme's style.css

:focus{outline:0}

After: delete that rule and add

:focus-visible {
  outline: 3px solid #0040a3 !important;
  outline-offset: 2px !important;
  box-shadow: 0 0 0 5px #fff !important;
}
Pictures
The report shows this keyboard stop before and after the fix. We've left the pictures out because they would show the practice's website.

From our audit of a saved copy of a real dental practice's website, shortened, with the practice's name taken out. See two more findings, the summary and the before-and-after results in the sample report

The second thing your web person gets

A letter that comes with the fixes

We had three pages of our website (home, appointments and contact) evaluated against WCAG 2.1 Level AA by Northshelf LLC. The report found 40 problems in the theme, its scripts and our form settings, and comes with the code for each fix [...]. Please apply the fix pack to the live site.

From the same report, details taken out. We don't test inside a vendor's own booking window, portal or bill pay, so for each booking, chat or payment tool on your pages you also get a letter asking that vendor for its accessibility report.

You also get the fixes in order, most important first, and a draft accessibility statement to publish in your practice's name. How each problem is written

Does it work?

What the fixes did on a real practice's website

We audited three pages of a saved copy of a real dental practice's website, fixed the copy and ran the same checks again. The live site wasn't touched, and we don't name it.

A 0 means these checks found nothing more, not that the site met the rule.

See every count and the report it came from

Home, appointments and contact pages, before and after the fixes
What the checks countedBeforeAfter
Page elements failing axe-core's WCAG rules330
Links with no name a screen reader can read out250
Form fields with no label a screen reader can read out180
Keyboard stops where you couldn't see where you were139 of 1480 of 177

Price

One price for the audit, paid once

No widget to install, and nothing repeats unless you ask for the monthly checkup.

Accessibility audit

$490 one time

  • Your main pages, tested against WCAG 2.1 AA
  • A scan plus keyboard, zoom and phone checks
  • A fix for every problem we find, most important first
  • A vendor letter and a draft accessibility statement
  • Free rechecks for 90 days, as often as you ask
  • The report within 5 business days
Order the audit

Prefer an invoice? Call us, email hello@northshelfaudits.com or reply to our email, and we'll send one you can pay online.

See a sample report

Monthly checkup

$49 a month

Optional, after your audit. Each month we rerun the automated checks on your audited pages, email you anything new, recheck that month's fixes, answer your web person's questions and give you a dated line for your statement. Your audit keeps its own date.

It starts only when you ask, stops when you reply "cancel", and stays $49 while you keep it.

Ask about the monthly checkup

Prices are in US dollars.

The rule

The HHS rule, in plain words

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act bars disability discrimination in programs that receive federal financial assistance. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) added a website and app requirement to its Section 504 rule, and in May 2026 it moved the dates back a year.

The rule says the websites and mobile apps of organizations that receive HHS federal financial assistance must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. That standard has 50 testable success criteria.

What the standard comes down to for a typical practice website
  1. Images that carry meaning have a text description, and decorative images are marked as decorative.
  2. Videos have captions. Nothing plays sound by itself for more than 3 seconds without a way to stop it.
  3. Everything works with a keyboard alone, including menus, forms, pop-ups and the appointment widget, and you can always see where you are on the page.
  4. Text stands out from its background (a contrast of 4.5 to 1, or 3 to 1 for large text), and color is never the only way information is shown.
  5. Pages still work when text is enlarged to 200% or viewed on a narrow phone screen.
  6. Every form field has a label, and errors are explained in words.
  7. Each page has a title, real headings in order, its language set, and links whose purpose is clear from their text or the sentence around them.
  8. Navigation stays in the same place from page to page, and nothing flashes more than three times a second.
  9. Messages such as "Your request was sent" are announced to screen reader users.
  10. PDFs and other documents posted after the date meet the same standard.

Who it covers

It applies to every recipient of HHS federal financial assistance, whatever its size; size only decides the date.

How many practices HHS thinks it covers

In its analysis, HHS counted about 168,459 physician offices and 124,384 dental offices, estimated that about 92% of physicians and 43% of dentists receive that assistance, and put covered recipients of all kinds at about 453,084.

Whether the rule covers your practice, and which date applies, is a question for your attorney. We can explain the published rule, but we can't give legal advice.

The five exceptions in the rule

Section 84.85 of the rule lists five narrow exceptions, each with conditions:

  • old pages made before the date, kept only for reference, not updated, and stored in a clearly marked archive area
  • documents posted before the date, unless patients use them to get care or services
  • content someone else posts, such as a patient review, unless they post it under a contract or other arrangement with you
  • individual documents behind a password, such as a patient's own bill
  • social media posts made before the date

Content a vendor posts for you under a contract is not exempt. Read the exceptions in the rule, or ask your attorney before relying on one.

Honest limits

What automated tools can and can't find

Every audit uses automated scanners, and they can't do the whole job on their own. The W3C, which publishes WCAG, says evaluation tools "can not determine accessibility, they can only assist." Deque, the company that makes axe-core, studied about 300,000 issues from first-time audits and found that its automated tests caught 57% of them; people reviewing the pages found the rest.

Our keyboard, zoom and phone-width checks are run by testing software in a real browser. They catch some problems a scan misses. One person on our team also goes through your home page and your appointment or contact form with the NVDA screen reader. Some problems can still go unfound, and the report says which check found each one.

No audit can promise that your site meets the rule or that no one will ever complain. Our report says which pages we tested, on what date, how we tested them and what we found.

How we test, check by check

57% of issues were found by automated tests in Deque's study

Source: Deque's automated accessibility coverage report.

Questions

Common questions

Select a question to show its answer.

We got an email from you about our website. Is it real?

Yes, if it names Northshelf LLC and our Clinton Township, Michigan postal address at the bottom; it comes from a mailbox that doesn't end in northshelfaudits.com, and here's why. Its numbers come from an automated scan of your public pages on the date in the email, which doesn't log in, fill in forms or change anything. Call us at (586) 217-0032 or reply for the full results, and use the unsubscribe link or reply "no" to stop our emails.

Our email said a recheck 30 days later. Is it 30 or 90?

It's 90. Our first emails, sent on November 7, 2026, said 30 days. The offer is now free rechecks for 90 days after your report, as often as you ask, and the practices that got those emails get the 90 days too.

Does the rule apply to our practice?

It applies to organizations that receive federal financial assistance from HHS. HHS estimates that about 92% of physicians and 43% of dentists receive it. If your practice takes Medicare, Medicaid or other HHS funding, ask your attorney to confirm.

Which date applies to us?

May 11, 2027 if you have 15 or more employees, and May 10, 2028 if you have fewer. The rule doesn't define how to count part-time staff, so check with your attorney if you're close to 15.

Do you need our website login or any patient information?

No. We test the pages anyone can see, and we never log in to your website, change it or see patient records. Please don't send us patient information.

Who makes the fixes?

Whoever looks after your website: your web designer or web company, or someone in your office using your platform's settings. For anything a vendor controls, such as online booking or a patient portal, you get a letter to send them.

Our web company says it handles accessibility.

Good. Ask them for their latest accessibility report for your site. If our scan found problems on your live pages, our fix list gives them the change to make for each one.

Will you confirm that our site meets the rule?

No one can honestly do that from an audit. Our report says which pages we tested, when, how and what we found, and the draft accessibility statement helps you describe your site accurately. Whether your practice meets the rule is a question for you and your attorney.

We already have an accessibility widget. Doesn't that cover us?

Our scan loads your pages with the widget running, and the problems we report were still there; a widget added through Google Tag Manager doesn't load in our scan, so tell us and we'll test with it on. Our fixes change the site itself, and we don't sell a widget. In April 2025, the Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring one widget company to pay $1 million over claims that its widget could make any website meet WCAG (FTC press release).

How long does it take?

The report arrives within 5 business days of your order.

What if our web person gets a fix wrong?

Send it back. For 90 days after your report we recheck as often as you ask, free, and if a fix we gave you was wrong, we correct it and recheck it free, any time.

What is the monthly checkup?

An optional add-on after your audit, for $49 a month: the automated checks run again on your audited pages, and you get anything new by email. It isn't a new audit, and it starts only when you ask. To stop it, reply "cancel" to any of our emails; we confirm the same day and don't charge you again.

Is this legal advice?

No. Northshelf LLC is not a law firm: we test websites against a technical standard and explain the published rule and its dates. Ask your attorney how the law applies to your practice.

Talk to us

Questions before you order? Call us, 8 AM to 6 PM Eastern, seven days a week. There's no charge to talk, and you don't have to buy anything.

Order online, call or email us, or reply "yes" to the email we sent you. Your report arrives within 5 business days of your order.

Call us

(586) 217-0032

8 AM to 6 PM Eastern, seven days a week

Email

hello@northshelfaudits.com

Prefer a call back? Email your number and a good time to call.

Order the audit, $490

See a sample report