Professional website for occupational therapy practices
Occupational therapy is an independent remedy profession under § 32 SGB V - ICF-based, everyday-focused and clearly distinct from physiotherapy. Parents, relatives and referring physicians search specifically online: for paediatrics, hand therapy, stroke rehabilitation, dementia support or SI therapy in your city. We build websites for occupational therapy practices that convey the professional profile cleanly, are aligned with HeilM-RL and § 124 SGB V, are worded HWG-analogously and carry equally for referrals and self-payers - without promotional exaggeration and without duplicating the practice management software.
Why occupational therapy practices need their own website today
Occupational therapy is a structurally well-developed but often invisible area of care. The German Occupational Therapy Association (DVE) lists around 11,000 practices in Germany, with strong concentrations in paediatrics, neurology, geriatrics and hand therapy. Patient inflow mainly comes from remedy prescriptions under § 32 SGB V - depending on the indication from paediatricians, general practitioners, neurologists, orthopaedists or psychiatrists - supplemented by self-payers in prevention and counselling. The structural growth drivers: demographically driven increase in geriatric indications (dementia, Parkinson's disease, stroke aftercare), wider diagnosis of developmental disorders in childhood (ADHD, autism-spectrum conditions, specific developmental disorders of motor function under ICD-10 F82) and a rising need for hand therapy after accidents and in older age. Demand is consistently high; regional waiting times for a first appointment sit at six to twelve weeks.
Despite this demand, patients, parents and referring physicians increasingly decide online which practice to choose. Parents google "occupational therapy children [city]", "SI therapy [city]" or "occupational therapy ADHD [city]"; relatives of stroke patients search for "occupational therapy stroke [city]" or "hand therapy after stroke [city]"; trauma and hand surgeons recommend practices whose hand-therapy focus is clearly visible online. Practices without their own website are absent from this search behaviour - they rely exclusively on direct referrals and word of mouth, which becomes structurally thin in a competitive urban environment and with rotating referrer contacts. A dedicated website is therefore not a marketing gadget but the precondition for your professional profile to be perceived at all.
The second major reason is organisational relief. The occupational-therapy labour market is strained, reception time is expensive and first consultations with parents are involved. A website that independently answers the main questions (which indications do you treat, which additional qualifications does your team hold, how long is the waiting time, which insurers do you bill, do you offer house calls, how does first contact work) reduces calls and queries and lets referrers, parents and relatives enter the first contact better prepared. It also acts as quiet triage: anyone who sees on the site that the focus is paediatrics and that adult neurology is not treated will not call in the first place - which protects resources and improves referral accuracy.
What belongs on a modern occupational therapy website
The homepage answers in ten seconds: which indication areas your practice treats, how patients and relatives can request an appointment, whether house calls are offered and which insurers you bill. A calm, professionally authentic image from your actual practice - therapy room with SI equipment, hand-therapy workstation, group room - is more credible than stock footage with colourful children's collages. Three central actions are visible: request appointment, call, view services by indication area. A short three-sentence block explains what occupational therapy is at its core (ICF-based work on everyday action ability) without slipping into jargon - parents and relatives need an everyday explanation, not a textbook definition.
Service pages are the SEO and professional centrepiece. One subpage per indication area with 600-1,200 words: paediatrics (developmental delay under ICD-10 F82, ADHD under F90, autism spectrum under F84, perception and sensory-integration therapy according to Jean Ayres, fine-motor, grapho-motor and action-competence support, parent counselling); neurology (stroke rehabilitation per AWMF S3 guideline, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, Bobath concept, mirror therapy, forced use, PNF, repetitive task-oriented training, activity-and-participation training); geriatrics (dementia support, fall prevention, assistive-device and home-environment counselling under § 40 SGB V, post-operative care); hand therapy (hand injuries to DAHTH standard, post-operative aftercare, CMD-accompanying therapy, splint making, scar management, sensory re-education); and psychiatry/psychosomatics (competence-oriented and interactional methods, expressive work, daily structuring in depression, resource work in addiction and psychosis). Each page explains factually: for whom (indication per HMK), with what goal (ICF activity/participation), using which methods, under what framework conditions (individual/group/house call, frequency per HMK or open prescription) and who bears the cost (statutory insurance per § 32 SGB V, private insurance, civil-servant allowance, self-payer).
The team page is particularly trust-relevant in occupational therapy because the choice of practice often hinges on additional qualifications. Per therapist: real portrait, state recognition as an occupational therapist by the competent state authority (training under ErgThG, formerly BeschThG), training institute, academic degree where applicable (B.Sc./M.Sc. Occupational Therapy), additional qualifications (Bobath course with certifying institute and year, SI certificate per DVE-Ayres, hand-therapy certificate of the German Working Group for Hand Therapy (DAHTH), Affolter course, Castillo-Morales, F.O.T.T., kinesio taping, LSVT-BIG for Parkinson's), clinical focus areas and memberships (DVE, DAHTH, DGKJP-associated training). The tone is factual, the information verifiable - which is HWG-analogous and at the same time what decides referring physicians and informed relatives.
An insurance and co-payment information block saves front-desk work and phone time. It names the § 124 SGB V approval, lists the accepted payers (all statutory and private health insurers, civil-servant allowance, statutory accident insurance, self-payers), explains the statutory co-payment (10 percent plus 10 EUR per prescription for statutorily insured patients aged 18 and over, exemption options under § 62 SGB V, children and adolescents co-payment-free) and makes the open prescription per § 125a SGB V visible as a topic of its own - a point that particularly relieves referring physicians. Self-payer and private services are communicated with a price range rather than fixed individual prices; for packages (hand-therapy series, SI diagnostics, parent counselling) an individual cost estimate is prepared.
The professional first contact in occupational therapy has many prerequisites and is best presented on the website as a sober description of the workflow. A clear "How your first contact with us works" section lists the relevant steps: phone or online appointment request with prescription data, intake anamnesis (with parents for children, with relatives for adults if desired), ICF-oriented goal agreement (for example through a client-centred assessment such as the COPM - Canadian Occupational Performance Measure -, paediatric findings instruments such as FEAS/BUEGA or typical neurological findings forms), setting of therapy frequency and focus areas within the HMK or open prescription, coordination with the prescribing medical practice on the course of therapy. This reduces uncertainty for relatives and signals to referring physicians that the practice works in a structured, documentation-strong way - an SEO and trust gain that needs no marketing tone.
House calls under § 12 HeilM-RL are a strong differentiator and are presented cleanly: which indications (e.g. severe mobility limitation, palliative care), which catchment area, which preconditions (a corresponding medical prescription with house-call authorisation). Workplace health promotion (BGF) under § 20b SGB V and course-style prevention offers are run as an information page - we describe in general terms what occupational therapy can contribute in a BGF context, without concrete case-specific commitments to employers, because that would touch the professional boundary to individual advice. A parent and carer guide area with professionally sound articles (e.g. "What to do with a writing blockage in second grade?", "Occupational therapy in the first weeks after a stroke - what to expect", "Dementia at home - how can occupational therapy help?") builds reach, authority and trust simultaneously - with sources (AWMF guidelines, DVE position papers, RKI/BZgA materials) and without individual-case advice.
Legal framework: ErgThG, HeilM-RL, § 124/§ 125a SGB V, HWG-analogous, GDPR, BFSG
The professional-law core is the Occupational Therapists Act (ErgThG, which replaced the earlier BeschThG - the Act on Employment and Work Therapists). It regulates training, state recognition and the protection of the professional title "Ergotherapeut/in" (occupational therapist). The recognition certificate is issued by the competent state authority; it is listed in the imprint under § 5 DDG together with the professional title, the awarding state and the competent supervisory authority. Further professional principles (factual communication, confidentiality) follow from the DVE professional code, which binds DVE members under association law and which is modelled on the medical professional code.
Occupational therapy is a remedy under § 32 SGB V. Scope and content of the service follow the Remedies Directive (Heilmittel-Richtlinie, HeilM-RL) of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) and the remedies catalogue (Heilmittelkatalog, HMK) contained within it - which assigns indications (diagnosis groups such as EN1 to EN4, SB1 to SB9, PS1 to PS5 and others) to the admissible remedies, therapy frequencies and prescription quantities. § 124 SGB V regulates the approval of the practice (IK number via the umbrella association of the statutory insurers), § 125 SGB V the nationwide framework agreement between the umbrella association and the relevant professional associations (DVE and others) on remuneration and quality requirements, and § 125a SGB V the open prescription that has been available for occupational therapy since 2021 - in which case the practice itself determines therapy frequency and duration within the HMK. We present this structure as a sober description of the procedure on the website; we do not provide individual legal advice.
The Medical Advertising Act (HWG) primarily targets medicinal products and medical devices but applies analogously to remedy providers via the professional factuality requirement and § 11 HWG. Concretely: no healing promises, no success rates, no before/after images with therapeutic claims for identifiable individual patients, no promotional or comparative advertising. Patient stories ("my son used to...") as testimonials with concrete illness trajectories are to be avoided. Permitted and useful: factual procedure and indication descriptions, qualification information with awarding body and date, equipment and room inventory as a factual list. We write within this rail and anchor every effectiveness statement in scientific sources (AWMF guidelines, DVE position papers, Cochrane reviews).
GDPR and BFSG round out the framework. Health data are special categories under Art. 9 GDPR and do not belong on our systems: contact and appointment-request forms forward entries via a secure SMTP connection directly into your practice mailbox, no file uploads are accepted (no prescription scan, no clinical-finding photo) and there is no patient database on our systems. Prescription submission and finding exchange happen in person, by post or through your certified practice management software. The privacy policy contains the extended mandatory disclosures for embedded third-party widgets (appointment booking, reviews, maps, fonts), and the corresponding data processing agreements are concluded directly between the practice and the respective provider - our role ends at the widget boundary. The German Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG), in force since 28 June 2025, directly covers occupational-therapy websites with consumer-relevant digital services (online appointment booking, electronic communication). We therefore build aligned with BFSG criteria (WCAG 2.1 AA) by default: sufficient contrasts, keyboard operability, screen-reader compatibility, clean form labels, alt texts for professional illustrations.
Local visibility, referrer network and Google Business Profile
Occupational therapy is a local business - the catchment area is typically 3-8 km in big cities, 10-25 km in small and medium-sized towns, and correspondingly larger for house-call focused practices. Google Business Profile with the category "Occupational Therapist" (and matching secondary categories where available), complete attributes (accessible entrance, parking, house calls, children's specialisation, hand therapy) and regularly updated opening hours is the strongest local lever. We set up the profile and hand ongoing maintenance over to your team so that special hours and holiday periods can be kept up to date at any time; we synchronise the related editorial logic with the website so that both sources remain consistent.
A central lever often underestimated by physiotherapy is visibility for referrers. Paediatricians, general practitioners, neurologists and hand surgeons do not primarily look for the nearest practice when writing a prescription, but for the one with the matching focus and additional qualifications - "occupational therapy Bobath [city]", "SI therapy per Ayres [city]", "hand therapy DAHTH [city]". We build the website so that it ranks for these professional-local combinations: indication landing pages with city reference, clear focus declaration in the team area, structured data per Schema.org (MedicalBusiness, with the Physiotherapy/OccupationalTherapy subtype where applicable, openingHoursSpecification, areaServed, hasOfferCatalog with the indication focus areas). In parallel we maintain consistent NAP data (name, address, phone) across Google Business Profile, the DVE therapist directory, regional medical networks and remedy portals - unspectacular, but the most solid SEO foundation.
Reviews are particularly sensitive in occupational therapy because they often arise from emotionally loaded therapy situations (parents of children with developmental disorders, relatives after a stroke) and can quickly drift into illness history. A review widget (Google Reviews widget, ProvenExpert) is embedded discreetly - GDPR-compliantly and, where real names are visible, with the necessary consent. We develop reply templates with you: considerate, factual, without reference to concrete treatment content and with a note to contact the practice directly. Therapist confidentiality applies analogously to medical confidentiality and extends all the way into public review communication.
Editorial delineation from physiotherapy: making the ICF perspective visible
The most frequent editorial mistake on occupational therapy websites: texts sound like slightly rewritten physiotherapy pages, because both professions work with body-near interventions, Bobath and stroke rehabilitation. The difference lies not in individual methods but in the target dimension. Physiotherapy works under the ICF primarily at the level of body functions and structures (strength, tone, range of motion, endurance). Occupational therapy works primarily at the levels of activity and participation - that is, at concrete everyday action (dressing, eating, writing, keyboard use, shopping, work tasks) and social participation (school, work, family, hobby). A good occupational-therapy website makes exactly this shift of perspective visible - not academically but linguistically.
Concretely: instead of "we improve your child's fine motor skills" we write "together with your child we work on the actions that matter to them in daily life - holding a pen and cutlery, closing buttons and zippers, safely handling scissors and paper, dressing themselves". Instead of "tone regulation after stroke" we write "after a stroke we practise step by step the actions that matter to you or your relatives in everyday life: getting out of bed safely, pouring coffee, buttoning a shirt, going shopping, playing an instrument again". Professional terms (Bobath, SI, mirror therapy, forced use, hand therapy to DAHTH standard) remain, but are placed in the activity-and-participation frame in which they take effect. This creates a profile that is immediately recognisable as occupational therapy for parents, relatives and referring physicians - without promotional delineation against other remedy providers, which would be professionally delicate in any case.
Frequently asked questions about websites for occupational therapy practices
How do I factually present the statutory-health-insurance approval under § 124 SGB V and the open prescription under § 125a SGB V on the website?
Approval under § 124 SGB V (German Social Code, Book V) is the precondition for an occupational therapy practice to treat patients on a statutory-health-insurance prescription. The IK number is issued upon application by the umbrella association of the statutory health insurers; the framework agreement under § 125 SGB V sets remuneration, billing formalities and quality requirements uniformly across Germany. On the website we communicate this as a sober fact: "Our practice is approved under § 124 SGB V. We accept all statutory and private health insurers, civil-servant allowance (Beihilfe) and self-payers." We avoid billing guarantees ("everything will be covered") - which services a specific fund actually reimburses depends on the prescription, the diagnosis and the remedies catalogue (Heilmittelkatalog, HMK). The open prescription for occupational therapy introduced in 2021 under § 125a SGB V (framework agreement between the umbrella association of the statutory insurers and the relevant professional associations, including the DVE) is explained in its own information block: when the referring medical practice ticks "Blanko-VO", the occupational therapists determine therapy frequency, duration and guiding symptoms themselves within the HMK. This is an important point for referrers and reduces follow-up questions; we phrase it as a factual description of the procedure under § 125a SGB V, not as promotional advertising.
What may an occupational therapy website factually say about effectiveness and treatment outcomes?
The German Medical Advertising Act (HWG) applies analogously to occupational therapy as a remedy under § 32 SGB V - via the factual-communication duty of the Occupational Therapists Act (ErgThG) and the case law around § 11 HWG for remedy providers. Permitted are factual indication and procedure descriptions: Bobath therapy, sensory integration according to Jean Ayres, Castillo-Morales concept, Affolter model, mirror therapy, forced-use therapy, hand therapy to DAHTH standard, ICF-oriented goal work. Not permitted are healing claims ("reliably cures ADHD"), concrete success rates ("80 percent improvement after 10 sessions"), before/after depictions with therapeutic claims for identifiable individual patients, and comparative advertising against other practices or remedy providers. Testimonials with concrete illness trajectories ("my child speaks three times as much since the SI therapy") are vulnerable under professional law and by HWG analogy. We therefore phrase service pages around indications and procedures, reference the ICF domains (activity, participation) for therapy goals and anchor any effectiveness statement in scientific sources (AWMF guidelines, DVE position papers, Cochrane reviews).
How do I communicate co-payment and self-payer prices transparently without promising fixed individual prices?
The statutory co-payment for remedies is 10 percent of the remuneration plus 10 EUR per prescription for statutorily insured patients aged 18 and over; children, adolescents and patients with an exemption under § 62 SGB V (burden ceiling) are co-payment-free. The remuneration itself for statutory-insurance services is not set at the discretion of the practice but follows the framework agreement under § 125 SGB V and is insurance-specific - fixed individual prices on the website therefore create the false impression that the practice sets the price. We recommend three principles: 1) Explain the statutory co-payment as a short, clearly worded block ("10 percent plus 10 EUR per prescription, exemption options under § 62 SGB V, children and adolescents co-payment-free") without listing individual prices. 2) For self-payers and private insurers a price range rather than fixed individual prices: "A single occupational-therapy session typically ranges between X and Y EUR - the exact amount depends on session length, focus area and additional qualification." 3) For more extensive packages (e.g. a hand-therapy series, SI diagnostics plus therapy, parent counselling) a written cost estimate as a fixed part of the workflow, communicated as transparency before treatment. This stays factual in the HWG-analogous sense and protects against expectation conflicts.
Why do we embed the appointment-booking widget of a specialised provider and not build our own booking system?
Online appointment booking in occupational therapy structurally touches Art. 9 GDPR. As soon as patients enter an indication, prescription type, referring physician or guiding symptom during booking, these are health data. Such data belong in certified specialist systems with a data processing agreement, not in a self-built Vercel function with a custom database. We therefore embed specialised providers via iFrame or button link - depending on equipment and practice management software: Doctolib, jameda, samedi, Terminland or the booking module of your practice software (TheraOrga, Buchner Praxisprogramm, azh/theorg, OPTADATA). The practice is the controller under Art. 4 No. 7 GDPR, the widget provider is the processor, and you conclude the data processing agreement directly with that provider; its certification and server infrastructure carry the risk. Our role ends at the widget boundary. If an additional general request form is desired, we work without data storage on our systems: entries are forwarded via a secure SMTP connection directly into your practice mailbox, no file uploads are accepted (no prescription scan, no clinical-finding photo) and nothing is stored in our database. Patients bring prescriptions in person or send them by post - the established route that raises no professional-law issues.
How do I make clear on the website that occupational therapy is an independent remedy profession and not "physiotherapy light"?
The distinction from physiotherapy is editorially decisive and too often only carried by the practice name. Occupational therapy works according to the bio-psycho-social model of the ICF (International Classification of Functioning) primarily at the levels of activity and participation - that is, at concrete everyday action and social participation - whereas physiotherapy predominantly addresses body functions and structures. We make this frame visible on the website without jargon: instead of "improves fine motor skills" we write "holding a pen and cutlery, closing buttons, operating phone keys - everyday action goals agreed with the child". Instead of "tone regulation" we write "getting out of bed safely, climbing stairs, carrying the shopping basket". Each service page follows the pattern: indication (e.g. stroke), therapy goal at the ICF level (e.g. regaining everyday-relevant grasp and manipulation ability), methods used (Bobath, mirror therapy, forced use, repetitive task-oriented training), framework conditions (individual or group therapy, house call under § 12 HeilM-RL, frequency per HMK or open prescription). On top come team profiles with additional qualifications (Bobath, SI per Ayres, hand therapy certificate DAHTH, Affolter, Castillo-Morales). This creates a clear professional profile - without promotional delineation against other remedy providers, which would be professionally delicate anyway.
What does a website for an occupational therapy practice cost?
Starter from 599 EUR net one-off plus maintenance from 59 EUR net per month for a website with service pages per indication area (paediatrics, neurology, geriatrics, hand therapy, psychiatry), team and qualifications overview, insurance and co-payment notes, a contact/appointment area and a blog or parent/carer guide area. Optional add-ons (separate order): Contact form with automatic acknowledgement, a lean appointment-request form without file upload (contact, focus area, prescription type, preferred time), embedding of an appointment-booking widget (Doctolib, jameda, samedi, Terminland or the booking module of your practice software) via iFrame or button link, a link module to the patient/carer portal of your practice software (TheraOrga, Buchner, azh/theorg, OPTADATA) and a review widget (Google Reviews, ProvenExpert). We do not build a custom patient login with prescription or treatment data, an appointment backend with slot calendar and cancellation workflow, billing of remedy prescriptions against statutory or private insurers, a prescription upload module or storage of clinical findings, ICF goal plans or treatment progress - for these features you use your practice software (TheraOrga, Buchner, azh/theorg, OPTADATA) and the specialised appointment-booking providers. Art. 9 GDPR data stays in the certified specialist systems. Details in the 30-minute initial consultation.
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What We Have Already Delivered
For a therapy practice, we developed a trilingual website with an animated landing page, interactive map and automatic contact form - features that are not achievable with a website builder or template.
View reference project →Full details on scope, packages and prices can be found on our Web Development services page.
View packages and prices →Ready for a website that fits your occupational therapy practice?
In the free initial consultation we discuss your indication focus areas (paediatrics, neurology, geriatrics, hand therapy, psychiatry), your team structure, your additional qualifications and your appointment-booking preferences (request form, Doctolib/jameda/samedi/Terminland or the booking module of your practice software). You get a concrete offer for a website that informs referrers, takes parents and relatives seriously and relieves your team - without marketing promises and without professional-law risks.
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