Dermatology Website Design: Two Visitors, Two Routes

Good dermatology website design gives the insured skin check and the cash-pay cosmetic consult their own page, booking path and count. A patient with a suspicious mole and a client asking about lip filler search differently and need different first answers.

Two people, two searches, two bookings

Medical and cosmetic visitors differ in what they ask first. The medical visitor asks "do you take my insurance, and how soon can I be seen?" The cosmetic visitor asks "who does it, what does it cost, and what will I look like?"

Google's Keyword Planner puts a click on "skin cancer screening near me" at $2.03 to $8.62 at the top of the page (October 2026).

What the two routes look like

Give each visitor an entry page and a booking path that carries the visit type through.

The medical page leads with plans accepted, whether a referral is needed and the next open slot. The cosmetic page leads with who performs the treatment, the consult fee or the price, and the deposit rule. I cover the treatment page itself in med spa website design.

Watch the price wording in California. Business and Professions Code 651 says price ads must be exact, without phrases such as "as low as" or "and up".

Patient photos need a signed form

A patient photo is health information, so get consent on a signed form. HIPAA's de-identification rule lists "full face photographic images and any comparable images" among the identifiers to strip before health information counts as de-identified.

Plan how a photo comes down when a written revocation arrives. The same rule bars you from making treatment conditional on signing.

In Ontario, the physicians' college adds conditions on top of the provincial health privacy law (PHIPA). Physicians must ask for express consent only after the treatment, show the patient the final images, and offer no incentive to agree. The policy allows the photos on a physician's own website but not in ads people are likely to see unsolicited.

California's section 651 also governs how the images look:

• Before-and-after views must be comparable, so results are "not distorted by favorable poses, lighting, or other features of presentation".
• Next to each pair, say in easily readable type which procedures were done.
• Add a statement that the same results may not occur for all patients.
• A photo of anyone who isn't your own patient for that procedure must say clearly that it shows a model.

The section covers California's licensed health professionals. Other states differ, and I'm not a lawyer, so ask yours.

For paid social, Meta's Health and Wellness standard allows before-and-after images for general cosmetic procedures, in ads targeted to people 18 or older.

How should "board certified" read?

Name the board every time, and keep the claim checkable. In California, a physician licensed by the Medical Board of California may say "board certified" only for an American Board of Medical Specialties member board or a recognized equivalent. The board's full name has to appear with "comparable prominence" in the same statement.

Patients can verify you: the American Board of Dermatology offers an "Is My Dermatologist Board Certified?" search by name or NPI. So write the full name, as in "board certified by the American Board of Dermatology".

In Ontario, the college's advertising policy allows only the titles, designations and specialties that the General Regulation under the Medicine Act, 1991 permits.

What do you count?

Count three events, and keep them apart. In Google Ads, a primary conversion action shows in the Conversions column and is used for bidding. A secondary one is for observation: Google reports it in "All conversions" and leaves it out of bidding.

Bookings imported from Google Analytics start as secondary, so ask whoever runs your ads to make them primary if nothing else counts the same booking.

Google recommends "One" for lead actions, because one lead per ad click is usually what adds value. The paid-treatment action comes from your booking or billing system. Once the imports look right, make it primary and move the consult action to secondary. For how to send it back, see appointment booking conversion tracking.

Test both routes with your phone

Run this once on each route.

1. Search the page's main phrase on your phone and tap your own listing.
2. Count taps to a confirmed time slot.
3. Finish a test booking with a visit type that matches the route.
4. Open the booking system and check the visit type landed correctly.
5. Ask whoever set up tracking which action fired. Only one should.

If the booking page sits on another domain, Google Analytics counts two users and two sessions unless cross-domain measurement is set up. To keep one booking from counting on two actions, see my post on calls versus form submissions.

Check with the designer

• Medical and cosmetic visits get separate entry pages and separate visit types.
• The insurance line sits on a phone before the first scroll.
• Name who handles consent forms and who removes a photo when a patient revokes.
• The hand-off to booking keeps the visit type and ad source.
• Find out who owns the domain, hosting and booking login.
• The form asks only what the office needs to call back, as in HIPAA website forms.

Prices and rules checked on 2026-10-26.