New DOJ rules for online healthcare content make sure seniors aren’t taken offline
New DOJ rules for online healthcare content make sure seniors aren’t taken offline
McKnights Senior Living, by Aaron Dorman; 4/11/24
The Department of Justice took steps earlier this week to help make sure old adults have appropriate access to valuable web content they need for understanding important healthcare and coverage decisions. State and government agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, must abide by new technical standards, according to a new DOJ rule signed Monday [4/1/24]. “Just as stairs can exclude people who use wheelchairs from accessing government buildings,” the official rule states, “inaccessible web content and mobile apps can exclude people with a range of disabilities from accessing government services.” The technical requirements of the rule are extensive — the updated document is almost 300 pages long — but the overall purpose is to instruct agencies on their obligations to account for possible disabilities.