Accessibility Overlays Don’t Protect Your Practice

If you run a healthcare or wellness practice, website accessibility isn’t optional. Patients with disabilities need to book appointments, access portals, and read your content just like everyone else. When they can’t, that’s a real problem — and increasingly, a legal one. ADA lawsuits targeting websites have climbed every year.

So when a company offers a quick fix, it’s tempting to say yes and move on. But the most popular “fix” on the market doesn’t just fail to protect you — it can make things worse.

What Is an Accessibility Overlay?

An accessibility overlay is a piece of JavaScript you add to your website. It promises to make your site compliant with ADA and WCAG standards automatically — screen reader support, keyboard navigation, color contrast adjustments, the works.

Companies sell these as drop-in solutions. Install a widget, pay $490/year, and check the compliance box. No developer needed. No code changes. Sounds like a no-brainer.

The problem is that it doesn’t work the way they claim.

Why Overlays Fall Short

Overlays address surface-level issues — things like font sizing or color contrast toggles that a visitor can adjust. But they only catch an estimated 30–40% of real accessibility problems.

The remaining 60–70% are structural. Missing form labels. Broken heading hierarchy. Images without alt text. Navigation that doesn’t work with a keyboard. These require changes to the actual HTML and code of your website. No JavaScript add-on can rewrite your site’s underlying structure.

Think of it this way: an overlay is like putting a fresh coat of paint on a building with a cracked foundation. It looks better from the outside, but the structural problems are still there.

The FTC Agrees

In 2025, the FTC fined the largest accessibility overlay company $1 million for making false compliance claims. They were telling businesses their product guaranteed ADA compliance. It didn’t.

On top of that, over 1,000 accessibility professionals — the people who actually build accessible websites for a living — signed a public statement against overlay tools. The statement is called the “Overlay Fact Sheet” and it’s freely available online.

This isn’t a fringe opinion. The expert consensus is clear: overlays don’t deliver what they promise.

Overlays Can Actually Increase Your Legal Risk

Here’s the part that surprises most practice owners: 22.6% of ADA website lawsuits filed in early 2025 targeted sites that had an overlay installed.

The product marketed as lawsuit protection became evidence of cutting corners. Plaintiffs’ attorneys know what overlays are, and they know what they don’t fix. Having one installed can actually signal that you were aware of accessibility issues and chose the cheapest workaround instead of doing the real work.

What Actually Makes a Healthcare Website Accessible

Real accessibility isn’t a widget. It’s a set of one-time code fixes and ongoing practices:

Fix your HTML structure. Use proper heading levels (H1, H2, H3 in order). Add landmark regions. Structure your pages so screen readers can navigate them logically.

Add alt text to every image. Describe what the image shows. If it’s decorative, mark it as such so screen readers skip it.

Make forms keyboard-navigable. Every field — name, email, phone, appointment request — should be reachable and usable with just a keyboard. Tab through your own forms and see what happens.

Test with a screen reader. VoiceOver (Mac/iOS) and NVDA (Windows) are both free. Turn one on and try to book an appointment on your own site. You’ll find issues in minutes.

Add an accessibility statement page. This tells visitors you take accessibility seriously and gives them a way to report issues. It also demonstrates good faith if a complaint ever arises.

Most of these fixes are one-time work. They cost less than a single year of an overlay subscription — and they actually solve the problem.

Key Takeaways

• Accessibility overlays catch only 30–40% of real issues and can increase lawsuit risk
• The FTC fined the largest overlay company $1M for false compliance claims
• Real accessibility requires fixing your site’s code and structure — not adding a widget
• Most fixes are one-time and cost less than an annual overlay subscription

If you’re unsure where your practice’s website stands, we can do a quick ADA accessibility review in about 10 minutes. Just reach out and we’ll take a look.