Regarding return to work post-COVID lots of online comments on other forums about increase in fees based on the cost of PPE and the increased time to sanitize/disinfect between patients will reduce the number of patients we can treat. After doing some number crunching it would appear to me that to maintain my current professional fee ie my hourly wage I would have to increase my fees by £15 per patient to take into account the massive increase in PPE and lost time. Has anyone else come to realise this?
Had an interesting chat with another local pod who wants to increase fees too but thinks that £15 is too much even though its going to cost her that. Some pods have already increased fees by £10-£15 on start back to work. What concerns me is we have many FHP’s in our area doing purely doms. I know the IOCP support FHP’s here the same as podiatrists and hopefully they will be looking into the fee situation themselves but the ones in our area are with other ‘supporting bodies’ and I can find no information that actually shows any guidance for the said FHP’s. Given that our profession has regularly had the reputation of “the poor relation” in the medical profession it worries me that their fees wont take into account the current situation and podiatrists with clinics are going to suffer with the increased costs and lose out to those not increasing their fees.
Other professions I have notice have increased their fees significantly ie physios, chiropractors and osteopaths.
Im really at a loss as to what to do.