PODIATRY AND DIABETIC FOOT CLINICS
Diabetic Foot Clinics: Wound Care Visits, Supplies and Dues
A patient comes in with a wound dressing due every few days, a daughter who works, and a purse that tightens with each visit. Some weeks he skips. Your clinic knows the visit count but not the cost of dressings, offloading footwear and staff time that each visit consumes.
Our focus is the business side: visit scheduling, supplies and footwear costing, referral relationships with physicians and surgeons, and fee collection. We do not advise on wound care, amputation decisions or patient outcomes. Those are for your podiatrist, the treating doctors and the councils to decide.
Discuss your priorities ↗COMMON CHALLENGES
The pressures
we often see.
- 01Patients need frequent dressing visits over weeks, and each missed visit pushes the schedule while the clinic still holds the room and the nurse.
- 02Dressings, offloading devices and custom insoles vary in cost and are billed inconsistently, so two similar patients can leave very different margins.
- 03Physicians, endocrinologists and vascular surgeons send most patients, but the clinic rarely reports back or tracks who refers consistently.
- 04Families run out of money partway through, and the clinic has no clear plan for instalments, discounts or hardship cases.
- 05Footwear and insole sales depend on one technician, so stock, measurement, adjustments and returns are all handled by memory and goodwill.
OUR FOCUS AREAS
Where the work
usually starts.
- 01Visit schedule per patient with next due date, last attendance and the number of missed visits.
- 02Cost per dressing visit, covering supplies, nurse time and room time.
- 03Footwear and insole stock by size and type, with cost, sale price and returns.
- 04Referrer register by physician or hospital with numbers sent and a short feedback note template.
- 05Fee and instalment policy for long courses, plus a written rule for hardship cases.
- 06Staff roles across podiatrist, nurse and front desk with a handover note for each ongoing case.
- 07Consent and record-keeping routines, checked against what your clinician says is needed.
- 08A monthly view of active patients, missed visits, supplies spent and amounts outstanding.
START THIS WEEK
Things you can do
before you call anyone.
- Write down every active wound-care patient with their next due date. Mark anyone whose last visit was more than a week past due. Have the nurse call each one, and note what they say.
- Choose the three supplies you use most and write what each visit consumes in rupees. Then compare with what you charge. If you cannot say, that is the first number to work out.
- Hypothetical example: a visit billed at ₹500 uses ₹180 of dressings and 40 minutes of nurse time. If nurse time is worth ₹200 per hour, the visit makes less than it appears, before room and rent.
A PRACTICAL ENGAGEMENT
Start with the priorities
that matter most.
We begin by understanding how your business runs today, find the gaps, and agree the scope in writing. Recommendations are shaped around your team, your resources and your goals.
- A patient visit tracker with due dates, reminders and missed-visit follow-up calls.
- A visit costing sheet for dressings, offloading devices and footwear.
- A fee and instalment policy that the front desk can explain.
- A referrer update routine and a quarterly call list.
Not the right fit when: When a patient has had a complication, an amputation is disputed or a clinical protocol is in question, the treating clinicians and your insurer come first. Do not start costing visits until then.
Explore a business audit ↗LET’S MOVE YOUR BUSINESS FORWARD
