In depth shoes-more responses added

In depth shoes-more responses added

Original post:
Where do you procure your depth shoes locally or through a national source?
What are you having to pay?
Do you provide depth shoes to Medicaid clients?
Is your markup compatable with surviving as a practice?
Answer any, all or no questions.

Responses received:

Apex Ambulator from Cascade $68.00

We try to get custom shoes and pay 225-240 bucks. TRUFIT is hit and miss. We
make no money but do not lose too much if you consider your time.

National source/ PW Minor
About $56 a pair
No
No

I get mine from APEX of course I don't sell'em I give'em away....New Balance
tennis shoes come in wide if that will help.

Medicaid is coveing for our kids to get TM2000 shoes routinely. They are
ridiculously expensive actually, so I guess the markup is adequate. I
encourage people to use regular shoes if the child's foot is slim and not
high-arched, but a lot of kids can find nothing else to go on over
orthotic devices.

We buy our depth shoes almost exclusively from P.W. Minor & Sons, Batavia,
NY. Prices range anywhere from $65.00-$95.00. We have found that they have
the largest selection, excellent quality, and superior service over other
companies manufacturing depth shoes. We do provide Medicaid recipients with
depth shoes but normally only as a sideline service. We seem to be
obligated to provide shoes for our referral sources of prosthetic/orthotic
clients. If we had to rely only on New York State Medicaid fees for our
markup, the practice would not be viable. We also provide plastazote lined
depth shoes for our diabetic clients under the Medicare Therapeutic Shoe
program. For those we use M.J. Markell, and Otto Bock has a limited line of
quality depth shoes.

Is this a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell no we make no money from shoes and they
are the bane of our existence!!!!!!!

Randy, I have a practice within a county hospital and:
1.) we procure our depth shoes locally through a pedorthist. We refer our
patients to this individual only for shoe fittings. We have our patients
return to us for a follow up appointment after receiving the shoes to
evaluate the overall fit of the shoe, to evaluate the orthosis fit in the
shoe, and to evaluate for the installation of customized shoe modifications
(i.e., wedges, rocker soles, etc.) when indicated
2.) The county hospital has a contract with the pedorthist and I am not sure
what the contracted amount per shoe is although, I do understand that extra
depth name brand shoes such as SAS can go for over $100 in this region.
3.) The county hospital does provide depth shoes for medicaid clients and
this is funded through a special shoe fund for at-risk patients with
diabetes. This fund is financed through a hospital tax for Dallas county
residents.
4.) Since our O and P practice is primarily to provide customized devices
and is currently separate of providing shoes, only the customization of depth
shoes that our patient receive, we are able to survive as a practice.
Hope this information was of some benefit. I am very interested to learn the
responses to these questions that you receive from other members of the
listserv.

These posts are new since previous post:

In the office I work in we,
 - Purchase our ED shoes from either P. W. Minor or Drew.
 - Cost runs between $80.00 to $95.00 per pair.
 - Unfortunately Missouri Medicaid reimbursement sucks. We receive $80.00
per pair
   of shoes which usually doesn't cover our cost. Our policy does not allow
us to
   take Medicaid assignment. We do accept Medicare assignment however since

   reimbursement is much better.
 - Markup doesn't matter, Medicaid has a set reimbursement which does not
   change under any circumstances. None of our competitors take Medicaid
assignment, so we don't have to worry about how this policy will effect
businesss.

If you lose a contract because you stuck to your guns on price, sit tight.
Chances are high that the one that chooses not to low-ball also chooses the
high rode in the area of service and thus creates an atmosphere of patient
care that is tough to equal, let alone beat!!!! I'm tellin' ya, buddy, it's
all about karma!!! My old boss-a gentleman very well respected in the field
at the national level, Grover Bud Jeffcoat, III, CO, told me when I first
came out of the Air Force (to work with him in Savannah, GA) not to focus
alot on the money side of this. Provide the most superior customer service
one could possibly provide and everything else seems to fall into place. I
can now, many years later, see the magic of that statement. Many debate the
accuracy of that statement in today's sh