Is Your Health Care Website Missing This One Critical Feature?

Visitors and search engines alike are looking for this critical feature on your health care website. If you don't have it, your site will function, but are you missing out on opportunities?

SSL (Encrypting Your Website Sessions)

SSL is the technology websites use to ensure secure transmission of data between your visitors and your site. More and more visitors are looking for the telltale lock on your website to know whether to trust your site. If your website does not offer SSL connections, many visitors will be wary of sharing information or in some cases even hesitant to browse the site. SSL is becoming a badge of trust for websites, and never has this sort of credibility been more important for health care websites. If you are not seeing the httpS or the lock on your site when you visit, look into getting this feature setup. In most cases it's fairly inexpensive and can help ease the minds of your visitors - and the search engines.

Requiring SSL Connections

Now, assuming that you have SSL setup on your site, are you requring an SSL connection? This is fairly easy to test - just type your domain name into your browser using the HTTP:// instead of HTTPS:// and see if you are redirected. If not, you should investigate setting this up.

HIPAA and PHI

As you know, HIPAA compliance and how we handle PHI are critical in a health care website. If you are capturing PHI (Protected Health Information) you must take all necessary steps to protect this information from prying eyes. SSL is one leap in the right direction.

What Next?

If you have discovered that you are not requiring SSL connections to your health care website, speak with your hosting provider or website development partner to discuss how to move towards SSL. In most cases, it's straightforward and inexpensive to implement and can bring your visitors and search engines much needed peace of mind!