Is your telehealth business buried on your website? If it is, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to boost patient engagement and reduce costs.
Telehealth isn’t just another service line. It’s a distinct business model with its own users, workflows, and expectations. Your website and UX design must reflect that.
By 2026, nearly one in three U.S. medical visits are projected to be virtual. Whether you’re offering urgent care telehealth, behavioral health, or chronic care management, your digital front door must drive action.
In this post, we explore how to rethink your telehealth UX strategy and highlight pure-play and hybrid leaders that are getting it right.
Why Telehealth Should Be Central to Your Business Strategy
Understand Your Position on the Virtual Care Continuum
To win over virtual-first healthcare consumers, your organization must be intentional about what it offers and how it’s presented. So, where does it fall on the continuum: traditional-first, hybrid, or pure-play telehealth?
No matter your model, virtual care can’t be an afterthought. It must be strategically embedded with a strong foundation in usability, accessibility, and digital trust.
Learn From Healthcare Organizations That Have Already Adapted
These forward-thinking healthcare organizations have already made telehealth a core part of their business, and it’s paying off.
- BetterHelp
BetterHelp makes mental health care simple and accessible. With a mobile-first, user-friendly design, they’ve eliminated barriers to therapy, allowing patients to easily find and connect with licensed therapists anytime, anywhere. That’s why they’re a go-to platform for over three million mental health patients. - Ria Health
Ria Health is a fully virtual, evidence-based program for those struggling with alcohol use disorder. They offer around the clock access to coaching, medication management, and support groups. With over three million users served, they are a trusted name in digital addiction care. - Tia
Tia is a hybrid care model for women’s health, combining in-person care with virtual visits. Over 60% of visit happen virtually, proving that digital-first care can be personalized, effective, and scalable.
Building Digital Trust Begins With Your Website
Increasing virtual care adoption rates requires trust, usability, and accessibility.
And your healthcare web design sets the tone.
UX Principles That Accelerate Virtual Care Adoption
Make Telehealth CTAs Clear and Actionable
Think of calls-to-action like wayfinding signs in your hospital or waiting rooms. They should guide users toward the next step. Straightforward, jargon-free language eliminates barriers to engagement and significantly improves conversion.
When adding CTAs for virtual care, skip generic phases and opt for something specific, like:
- Book a Virtual Visit
- See a Provider Now
- Start Your Telehealth Appointment Now
Feature Virtual Care Options Prominently Across Key Pages
If your virtual care services are buried in a submenu or siloed on a paid search landing page, you’re leaving conversions on the table (and your competitors are probably scooping them up).
Instead, feature them across:
- Homepage
- Service line pages
- Conditions pages
- Provider bios
- Location listings
Build your telehealth user experience purposefully, ensuring patients encounter your virtual care options at every major decision point on your site.
Ensure Accessibility for All Uses and All Devices
A seamless virtual care experience must be mobile-first, ADA-compliant, and inclusive. That means your platform works from start to finish for every patient, regardless of ability, age, or device.
We suggest analyzing your site analytics to see how users access it and optimize it to meet their needs.
Streamline Appointment Scheduling and Login Processes
Every step it takes to book or launch a virtual visit is a chance to lose a patient. Push back on clunky workflows and internal red tape.
Today’s healthcare consumers expect healthcare experiences as seamless as ordering from a favorite retail shopping app.
- Prioritize systems that simplify scheduling.
- Keep intake forms short and sweet.
- Eliminate friction points, like last minute tech confusion.
Essential Features of a Telehealth-Optimized Website
Patient Portals and Secure Messaging Integration
A user-friendly, mobile-optimized patient portal is a critical part of the virtual care experience.
Here’s why. It puts appointment booking, care delivery, and aftercare in one place, meaning patients can book virtual visits, review lab results, and securely message their care team in the same web session.
Embedded or Linked Video Visit Tech
Make it as easy as possible for patients to start their virtual appointment. We’re talking FaceTime simple.
- Embed video visit functionality directly into appointment pages.
- Provide clear, step-by-step instructions.
- Include direct links to join virtual visits from the portal homepage, confirmation emails, and reminders.
Live Chat or Virtual Intake Tools
Build trust with new or reluctant patients exploring virtual care for the first time by implementing a live or AI-powered chat feature to help guide them in real-time.
These tools can act as supplemental front office staff, welcoming patients, answering common questions, and sharing forms.
Location and Service Line Routing
Help patients get to the right place. This is especially important for organizations offering hybrid in-person and virtual care options. Show patients you understand their needs and can help them get the correct care:
- Use smart routing to match users with the most appropriate care option.
- Tailor suggestions based on location, symptoms, and service line.
How to Convert In-Person Patients Into Virtual Care Users
Use Educational Content and Video Walkthroughs to Reassure, Empower, and Convert
Many older or less tech-savvy patients may feel reluctant to transition to telehealth. Educational content and short-form videos help humanize your brand, highlight the convenience and safety of virtual care, and create feelings of warmth, trust, and credibility.
Reduce the fear of the unknown by answering questions like:
- How does a virtual care visit work?
- Can I really get a diagnosis and treatment without coming in?
- Is telehealth secure and HIPAA-compliant?
Let Patients Tell the Story
If your healthcare organization already offers virtual care, real patient stories can be one of your most powerful tools. First-hand testimonials build trust and offer authentic reassurance.
They also work well alongside educational content.
Let’s say you offer women’s health and want to reach busy moms. Sharing a story about a patient who received compassionate, high-quality care from home while managing a busy schedule can make others feel seen, understood, and more confident in giving virtual care a try.
Use Reminders and Repetitions Across Channels
Consistent reminders across your website, social media, email, and SMS communications help keep virtual care top of mind. Repetition reinforces familiarity and trust, helping position it as a convenient, standard care model.
Common UX Mistakes That Drive Patients Away from Virtual Care Services
Burying Telehealth Options Behind Login Screens
When patients can’t preview your virtual care offerings upfront, they’ll assume it doesn’t exist (or worse, isn’t meant for them). Out of sight means out of mind (especially when someone is sick and looking for answers fast).
Put your telehealth integrations front and center.
Confusing Navigation Menus or Terminology
When someone doesn’t feel well, they’re not going to waste time struggling through a confusing website. They’ll leave and turn to a competitor who makes care easier (and faster) to access.
Using Clinical Jargon Instead of Clear Language
Keep your messaging clean, clear, and simple. This not only helps humanize your brand but also ensures patients understand what you offer. If your pages are loaded with clinical jargon, acronyms, and complicated medical terms, you’re not building trust. You’re creating unnecessary barriers to telehealth adoption that diminish patient confidence.
Final Thoughts: Rethink Your Website as a Virtual-First Experience
Elevate Trust Through Seamless Digital Experiences
Build a website that naturally guides patients through your virtual care marketing funnel, with concise messaging, straightforward navigation, and clear CTAs.
Virtual Care Isn’t the Future, It’s the Present (and It’s Here To Stay)
Like it or not, the pandemic made telehealth a core service that healthcare consumers have come to expect.
Whether you’re a hospital, health system, multilocation practice, pharma brand, or digital health platform, your website should clearly and strategically promote your virtual care services alongside core service lines.
Embracing virtual care helps you gain, regain, or maintain your competitive edge in access, trust, and loyalty.
Contact Us for a Virtual Care UX and Design Audit
As leaders, we must prioritize healthcare marketing and digital accessibility and treat UX as a strategic lever for growth and patient trust.
Are you ready to elevate your virtual care strategy? Contact us for a no-commitment UX and design audit and identify your top roadblocks.
