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05/16/2016 Keith Gurnick, DPM
Running Shoe Stores and "In-Store Custom Orthotics"
Can't anything be done to stop the shoe fitters and shoe sales personnel who work at running shoe stores from selling "quasi-custom on-the- spot milled orthotics" from being made and sold to the public? Too often, I have athletes and runners come in to my office, with foot, ankle, knee, hip or other postural aches and pains who have purchased, upon recommendation from a shoe salesperson these inserts that they are told are "custom foot orthotics." Unfortunately, these orthotics do not fully address their individual biomechanical deformities nor their specific conditions.
Although what they get may appear to look like custom prescription foot orthotics, they are certainly not because they were not ordered nor were they prescribed by any doctor for any specific diagnoses, (P.S. many runners who go to these shoe stores are told that they have pronated feet and/ plantar fasciitis) no prescription was ever written, and no measurements were taken by anyone with any credentials to evaluate the customer for conditions such as forefoot varus or valgus, limb-length discrepancy, rearfoot varus, RCSP, NCSP, to list only a few things we look at when we evaluate a patient.
When patients spend $250-$300 out of their own pockets for these mostly inappropriate and inferior products, it becomes difficult financially for them to purchase a medically- necessary and properly designed and fabricated custom prescription foot orthotic. These patients do not know the difference until they see the benefits gained from the use of a "real" foot orthotic.
How does our profession and our local, state and national associations continue to close their eyes and ears to this serious issue by doing little or nothing (either in the media or legislatively) to stop this problem which, by their neglect, continues to let these shoe stores and their employees get away with deceiving and harming the public?
Keith Gurnick, DPM, Los Angeles, CA
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