Hi! Kristi here, co-owner of Sam Heuck Web Development, with my first company blog post.

I’m here to tell you about an experience that really drove home, for me, the importance of the work we do here at Sam Heuck Web Development.

I don’t know this particular doctor… but knowing what I know about web software and the complexities of the U.S. medical system, I felt a pang of sympathy for the employees who will have to make this new system work.

Cut to yesterday. I was trying to fill out paperwork for our son’s doctor appointment, at an office where I myself have also had appointments. I got the text link for the patient portal, signed in as instructed… and landed in my own patient portal account, not my son’s.

So then, when I tried to create a new portal account for my son, I was asked to enter name and date of birth. I typed in my son’s name and DOB, only to receive an error message with a mysterious numerical code.

I don’t know the reason for the error. Maybe the system was auto-configured to reject user accounts with birth dates indicating a child under 13. Maybe my son’s name was misspelled in their EHR. Maybe something went “sploink!” in the code when I tried to create two accounts from the same phone number.

The point is, when I called the office for help, I didn’t know the reason for the error and neither did they. They said “unfortunately, we don’t have any information about error messages on the portal website.” Is there a help desk to call, or anyone to email for support? They didn’t know. The only solution they could offer was for me to arrive at the office early and fill out my son’s paperwork on paper, without using the web portal at all.

If your business serves the public: Is “mysterious red error code” the experience you want for your customers? What if your employees bypass the system you paid for and resort to tedious paper workarounds, whenever the AI code stalls like a confused Waymo?

Now imagine our doctor’s office had built their patient portal with a custom web developer (possibly even our company!)

The moment a patient encountered an error, the employee on the phone could have said “Let me call our web team, we’ll have that bug fixed by tomorrow!”

That’s if there was ever a bug in the first place. When you hire an experienced development team, we do QA testing on edge cases. Before your website goes live to the public, we have already tested what happens when a user tries to create an account for a kid under 13, or two accounts with the same phone number, or a misspelled name. If your system fails, we make sure it fails gracefully, so your customer is never left stranded with nothing but a big red error code.

While we do use AI tools to speed up coding and save money for our clients, we test and debug by hand – and we stay within your budget. Our concierge plan lets you purchase support hours only when you need them.

That’s the power of custom web development. Your front line employees will love the difference, when your website works smoothly without all those frustrated phone calls!

Best of all, custom software isn’t just for large enterprise corporations anymore. Sam Heuck Web Development works with organizations of all sizes, whether you need a small portfolio, a HIPAA-compliant patient portal, a CRM for a sales team of thousands, or a custom web app to lighten your workload and serve your customers.

Reach out today - let's make your website work!