If you provide services to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, you already know the system is complicated. Medicaid waivers, state DDD or DD division enrollment, support coordination, person-centered plans. The families you serve are navigating all of it at the same time as they are looking for reliable providers.
Your website has a chance to be the clearest thing they encounter in that process. Most IDD provider websites are not. They use insider language, bury contact information, and look like they have not been updated since the agency first got licensed. Here is how to do it better.
Know your two audiences
Families and self-advocates. Parents and guardians of adults with IDD are often managing everything themselves, sometimes for decades. They have strong radar for agencies that are organized and agencies that are not. Your website needs to show them, quickly, that you know what you are doing and that you have room for their person.
Support coordinators and case managers. In most states, Medicaid waiver participants are assigned a support coordinator or case manager who helps them choose providers. These professionals maintain their own lists of approved, reliable agencies. A well-built website with clear service descriptions and current contact information makes it onto those lists. A generic or outdated site does not.
Be specific about what you provide
IDD and waiver services vary enormously. Supported living, community integration, day habilitation, respite, personal assistance, employment support, behavior support. Do not assume that "we provide waiver services" tells anyone anything useful. List the specific services you are enrolled to deliver, the waiver types you work with in your state, and whether you have capacity.
If you are enrolled with your state's DD agency and appear on a provider directory, say so on your site. Families often start from the state directory and then look up each provider. Your site is their next stop.
Accessibility on your website is not optional
If you serve people with disabilities, your website must be accessible to people with disabilities. WCAG 2.2 AA is the current standard. That means proper heading structure, keyboard operability, color contrast that passes, and text alternatives for images. This is a legal baseline under the ADA and a moral expectation for any provider in this field.
A Provider Websites build meets WCAG 2.2 AA by default. Every client site does.
What to put on your homepage
- Who you serve and what services you provide
- Which states and counties you operate in
- Which Medicaid waivers you are enrolled in
- Your state DDD provider number or enrollment status, if publicly relevant
- A contact method for families and a separate one for support coordinators
- Something genuine about your approach to person-centered care
Skip the stock photos of people holding hands. Use language that treats the people you serve as full human beings. Families notice the difference between performative language and genuine commitment.
If you are ready to build a site that actually serves your families and earns support coordinator referrals, start with a free preview at Provider Websites.