Lyndon Baines Johnson served as the 36th President
of the United States from 1963-1969. He was
responsible for the “Great Society” legislation
that included the law that created Medicare. The
President had a foot problem that caused him to
become a “routine foot care” patient of Charles T.
Turchin, DPM, a Washington, DC, podiatrist.

"Charlie" as most of us knew him, was a great
advocate for podiatry being included in the
Medicare law. He alone convinced President Johnson
to include us in Medicare. Charlie told
podiatrists about this in the fantastic podiatric
practice management lectures he gave all over the
country.

I was once in Charlie's practice management
lecture audience when he said something like:
“...and the thing that I stressed to the President
is the fact that podiatrists are trained to
relieve pain and prevent suffering in ways such as
routine foot care that other doctors are not
trained to do.” So, yes, those of us in my "old
timers" podiatry club are proud to say that, in
great part, we are where we are today because of
yesterday's podiatrists' education and learned
skills that enabled us to provide “routine foot
care” better than any other medical profession.

Back to past history. So, Medicare included us,
and that required every insurance company that
sold Medicare supplemental insurance to begin
reimbursing podiatric physicians for all foot care
service provided by MD/DO physicians, plus the
"routine foot care" services almost exclusively
provided by podiatrists. Most other insurance
payers that were not reimbursing podiatrists for
their services followed along and began paying us.
Almost overnight, podiatry's stature and our
practices' financial potential escalated.

But Charlie did not advocate that podiatrists be
“a step above a pedicurist” by cutting corns and
callouses and ingrown toenails time after time
without any attempt to eliminate them. Charlie
had a passion for teaching podiatrists of that era
how to motivate our patients to begin “remedial
foot care treatment plans” capable of eliminating
– not just palliating – most “routine foot care”
conditions non-surgically.

So, maybe we should be putting some of Dr.
Turchin’s type of motivating, practice management
lectures back on the programs at some of our
conventions and meetings? There is something
remedial and not "routine" that we can do for
almost all of the so-called "routine foot care"
patients, especially those at risk of amputations
whose limbs we can help save.

In my humble, personal opinion, podiatry's image
and our worth to the public -- including the new
Obamacare health care reimbursement system we are
now beginning -- is enhanced when a podiatrist is
a highly qualified surgeon, but also makes him or
her self available to the foot-sore public to
relieve foot pain and suffering by all available
means.

Lawrence M. Rubin, DPM, Las Vegas, NV,
[email protected]