What if you need a podiatrist to help with your foot care?

Sometimes, you might need a podiatrist to help manage your foot care needs. Podiatrists can develop a podiatry care plan that will outline how you or someone else can help you manage your foot care.

The podiatry supports we can fund may include:

• an initial consultation and assessment by a podiatrist
• the development of a podiatry care plan
• foot care, such as toenail cutting or callus removal to prevent foot-related problems
• regular re-assessment during your care plan
• a detailed assessment at the end of your care plan, to make sure your next plan includes the right amount of support.

What if you need assistive technology?

You may need equipment to help protect your feet, so that you don’t need as much regular foot care. We call this assistive technology.

Assistive technology to help manage your foot care needs may include things like:

• orthoses such as a brace or splint
• custom - made orthoses
• medical grade footwear. These are shoes which have been modified to include special features like heel lifts, rocker bottom soles, toe skates or flared soles to accommodate the wearing of braces and callipers.
• custom footwear, for example, to accommodate the wearing of splints or braces
• maintenance and repair of your podiatry related assistive technology.

We may fund assistive technology if you can give us evidence that:

• the assistive technology will reduce your need for other supports - for example, less need for a support worker or podiatrist 
• you’ll be able to do more things on your own, for example, using specialised shoes will help you go shopping, visit friends or go to school or work 
• other mainstream health services don’t fund the assistive technology and you need the support directly because of your disability. 

You’ll need to give us evidence from a podiatrist or other appropriately qualified professional that you need the support. We’ll use the evidence to work out if the support meets the NDIS funding criteria.

Learn more about assistive technology and the evidence we need before we can create your plan .

What if you need help to manage your podiatry and foot care support needs?

You might be able to manage your podiatry and foot care needs by yourself. Or, you may need help to manage your podiatry and foot care. If you don’t have family or friends that can help, we may fund a support worker to help you.

For example, to help you use your foot supports or to help you with foot exercises. There are some tasks that a support worker can’t help you with.

For example, cutting your toenails or removing calluses. We may include funding for a podiatrist to help you with these.

We can only fund these supports if they relate to the things you can’t do because of your disability.