Foot deformities that qualify for custom diabetic shoes. Medicare covers diabetic shoes and diabetic inserts for foot deformities such as bunions to prevent amputation. Most diabetics can get an off-the-shelf...
Most diabetics can get an off-the-shelf type of shoe. However, several deformities qualify for having custom diabetic shoes made. Bunions would qualify as would a hallux valgus, which is where the great toe overlaps smaller toes. Other deformities might be hammertoes or what we call a Charcot foot, which is a deformity where the foot is kind of collapsed and very rigid or flat. To get custom made shoes or inserts, your pedorthist or podiatrist would make casts of your feet and send them off to the manufacturer.
To qualify to have Medicare pay for this, you have to have a deformity that is considered severe enough. You can pay for custom shoes yourself without a prescription if you'd like, but I would say that 95% of the diabetics can be buy off-the-shelf diabetic shoes. If you don't qualify for Medicare, some private insurance companies in some cases will now pay for diabetic footwear. They followed what Medicare has done, because they realize that it's cheaper to put their customer in diabetic footwear than to risk amputation. The cost of an amputation and after care is in the neighborhood of about $250,000. There are about 85,000 amputations every year due to diabetic complications. It's a very important problem.
