Telehealth-friendly website design: 8 considerations

If your practice offers both in-person and telehealth, your website needs to make that choice obvious in the first 3 seconds — otherwise you’ll lose patients to the next practice down the search results. Most “we do both” practice sites bury the telehealth option in paragraph 3 of the services page, and patients searching specifically for telehealth never find it.

Why mixing the two confuses visitors

A patient searching for telehealth and a patient searching for in-person care have different needs. The first wants to know the platform, the technical requirements, and that the appointment will work from their kitchen. The second wants the address, parking info, and what room they’ll be in.

Cramming both audiences into one undifferentiated booking page asks them to do the work of figuring out which parts apply to them. Most won’t bother.

Differentiating in-person and telehealth on your homepage

The strongest pattern is two clearly-labelled paths from the homepage hero. Not “book a session” — but two CTAs side by side: “Book in-person (Carlton)” and “Book telehealth (anywhere in Australia)”.

Each path leads to a slightly different booking flow. The in-person path emphasises clinic location and parking. The telehealth path emphasises platform (Zoom, Coviu, Halaxy Telehealth), what the patient needs (laptop or phone, decent internet), and confidentiality of their own space.

Less effective: a single booking page with a checkbox toggle deep in the form. The toggle works once people are committed, but it doesn’t help people who haven’t decided yet.

What telehealth visitors specifically look for

Telehealth-specific concerns that don’t apply to in-person bookings.

• Platform — “We use Coviu, which is built for Australian healthcare and meets Australian privacy standards.” Or Zoom Healthcare, or Halaxy Telehealth. Name it.
• Technical requirements — “You need a smartphone, tablet, or computer with a webcam, microphone, and stable internet (5 Mbps or better).”
• Privacy and security — “Coviu is encrypted in transit and at rest. Sessions are not recorded. We meet APP and AHPRA telehealth standards.”
• What to expect — “You’ll receive a unique secure link 15 minutes before your session. Click the link, allow camera/microphone access, and you’ll be in our virtual waiting room.”
• What if it goes wrong — “If the connection drops, we’ll call you on the phone number you provided and continue the session by phone.”
• Geographic eligibility — “Telehealth available to anyone in Australia. Medicare rebates require you to be physically in Australia at session time.”

Patients ask these questions either before booking (and don’t book if they can’t find answers) or anxiously the day of the session (which compromises clinical work). Putting the answers on the page solves both.

Mobile-first because most telehealth bookings happen from phones

Around 70% of allied health telehealth bookings are made on a mobile device, and a meaningful share of telehealth sessions are also attended from a phone. Designing the booking flow for desktop-first means designing for the minority case.

Mobile-first practical implications: tap targets at least 44x44 pixels (Apple’s accessibility standard), form fields with inputmode attributes so keyboards open in the right mode (inputmode="email", inputmode="tel"), single-column layouts (no two-column splits that wrap awkwardly), and date/time pickers that use the native iOS/Android wheel rather than a fiddly custom dropdown.

Also: telehealth platform compatibility checks. Some practice sites offer “test your camera” preview links — a small but reassuring touch for patients who are nervous about the technology.

Eight considerations

A practical checklist for telehealth-friendly practice site design.

1. Two distinct booking paths from the homepage. In-person and telehealth, side by side, equally weighted. Not buried in a sub-menu.
2. Telehealth-specific FAQ on the booking page. Answer the platform, security, and “what if it breaks” questions inline, not on a separate FAQ page.
3. Time zone clarity. Sessions shown in the patient’s local time, with the time zone explicit (“3:00pm AEDT”). Critical for patients booking from WA or international.
4. Pricing parity (or clarity if not). State whether telehealth is the same price as in-person and whether Medicare rebates the same amount (it does, for most services).
5. Mobile-first booking forms. Tested on a real iPhone and a real mid-range Android. Native pickers. Large tap targets.
6. Confirmation email with the secure link. Sent immediately on booking confirmation. Repeated 1 hour before the session. Reduces no-shows substantially.
7. A backup plan documented on the page. “If the video doesn’t work, we’ll call your phone.” Anxious patients book more confidently when there’s a fallback.
8. Integration with the booking platform’s telehealth feature. Halaxy, Cliniko, Coviu, and others all have native telehealth flows. Use them rather than a separate Zoom-link-emailed-manually workflow.

Integration with platforms like Halaxy

For Australian psychology practices, Halaxy’s native telehealth integration is the lowest-friction option. The patient books, gets a confirmation email with a single secure link, and clicks it 15 minutes before the session. No software install, no separate Zoom account, no manual link-sending.

Cliniko’s telehealth (powered by Coviu) works similarly. Both options eliminate the most common no-show cause: the patient can’t find or doesn’t recognise the meeting link in their inbox 60 seconds before the session starts.

If you’re currently doing telehealth with manually-emailed Zoom links and a separate calendar, switching to a platform-native telehealth flow is usually the single biggest operational improvement you can make. It also makes Medicare claiming much simpler for telehealth-eligible items.

What to do next

A practical sequence to make your site telehealth-ready.

1. Audit the homepage. Within 3 seconds, can a visitor see that you offer both telehealth and in-person? If not, add two CTAs.
2. Write a 200-word telehealth FAQ block for your booking page. Cover platform, requirements, privacy, what-if-it-breaks.
3. Switch to native platform telehealth. If you’re on manual Zoom links, migrate to your booking platform’s built-in telehealth feature.
4. Test on a phone. Book a session as if you were a new patient. How many taps? How many fields? Where does it get clunky?

Telehealth has reshaped Australian allied health permanently — Medicare data shows roughly 30% of psychology services are now delivered via telehealth. Your website should reflect that reality without confusing visitors who want one or the other.

For the related question of how to design the booking page itself, see my How psychology practices should structure their booking pages guide.

If you want a website built with both telehealth and in-person flows from day one, my service is here.