Which practices does Section 1557 cover?

Section 1557 covers any health program that receives federal financial assistance — which includes accepting Medicare or Medicaid. That reaches nearly every clinic, dental office, and community health center.

What if a third party built my website?

It still counts — the rule covers your website and patient portal even when a vendor built or hosts them. Your binder includes a dated remediation plan written as a work order you hand straight to your web vendor.

Do I need any technical skills?

None. We run the scan, write every finding in plain language, and prepare the legal documents. You simply hand the remediation plan to whoever maintains your website.

What exactly is the deadline?

Providers with 15 or more employees must comply by May 11, 2027; fewer than 15, by May 10, 2028. HHS extended these dates in 2026 — the requirement itself is not going away.

Do you access any patient data?

No. We scan only your public website and the public front of your patient portal — never anything behind a login — and we store no patient data, only defect metadata.

What does a Section 1557 website accessibility engagement actually involve?

Four steps, all of them run by us. We scan your public website, the public front of your patient portal and the documents you publish against WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA; we rank every failure by severity; we prepare the Notice of Nondiscrimination and accessibility statement for your practice to adopt and post; and we hand you a dated remediation plan written as a work order. WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA is the standard the regulation itself names, at 45 CFR 84.84. The Readiness Binder is $299 one-time for a single-location practice and $499 for multi-site or FQHC coverage.

What does our practice have to hand over to start?

Four things, none of them clinical: your website address, the public address of your patient portal login, your employee count, and a list of the documents you publish — intake forms, fee schedules, notices. The employee count is what decides your date, because 45 CFR 84.84(b) sets May 11, 2027 for recipients with fifteen or more employees and May 10, 2028 for recipients with fewer. We ask for no logins, no credentials and no patient records, so there is no protected health information involved and no business associate agreement to sign.

What is not included in the binder?

Three things, stated plainly. The binder is an evidence record, not legal advice — it does not replace an attorney reading your obligations. We do not edit your website ourselves; the remediation plan is written for whoever maintains it, in-house or a vendor. And we do not install an accessibility overlay widget: 45 CFR 84.84 requires the web content a recipient provides or makes available to comply with WCAG 2.1 Level A and AA, and a script layered over the page does not change what the underlying content is.

How many organizations does the rule cover?

About 453,084. That is HHS’s own count, from the Regulatory Impact Analysis published with the 2024 section 504 final rule: “Table 6 of the Regulatory Impact Analysis reports that there are about 453,084 recipients covered by this rulemaking” (89 FR 40179). It counts every recipient of federal financial assistance from HHS rather than health care alone, but it is why a single-dentist office and a hospital system are reading the same regulation and the same two dates.

CivicBinder Health alternatives

Six named vendors sell some version of Section 1557 accessibility to a healthcare practice. Here is what each one actually charges, read from its own page.

Last verified September 4, 2026

The subscription-scanner route

Practis, read live on 4 September 2026, charges $65 or $125 a month depending on whether remediation is included, testing every 24 hours. The full comparison against Practis is here. AllAccessible sells a JavaScript accessibility widget bundled with scanning at $10 or $99 a month, plus a custom enterprise tier, and adds a patient accommodation request portal.

The per-page audit route

Accessible.org publishes a rate card rather than a subscription: $100 to $250 per primary page or screen for a full audit, $1,250 to $2,750 typical, plus document remediation from $7.00 a page. This suits a one-time audit of a site that will not be rescanned regularly more than it suits ongoing monitoring.

The document-only route

Braille Works produces braille, large print, audio and accessible PDF from existing documents, quoted only by custom request, and does not remediate a website or patient portal at all. Vispero, maker of the JAWS screen reader this conformance is actually tested with, sells audits, VPATs and PDF remediation into healthcare with no rate published either. Neither is a substitute for website remediation on its own.

Where CivicBinder Health fits

CivicBinder Health brings the website, patient portal and documents to WCAG 2.1 AA together, flat fee, once: $299 for a single practice site, $499 covering all three. See every vendor on one grid, and the full comparison of all six goes through each one in depth.

Every figure above is what the named vendor's own page stated on 4 September 2026 and is linked so it can be checked directly; prices change without notice. Nothing here is legal advice.