I have to clarify that I have family members who work in insurance, so I start with a distrust of podiatrist.
I had a pain in my foot, like I was constantly stepping on a sharp rock. My regular doc referred my to a podiatrist. I'll admit I went in with a chip in my shoulder because I heard horror stories about how they add a ton of extra procedures to pad the bill. I had to wait almost 2 1/2 hours before I saw the doctor. I was going to leave but they kept moving to different rooms. promising he'll be right here. First thing they did was take x-rays of both feet. When I said I only have pain in one, they said I have to do two because the Dr wants a base for future treatment.
When I finally saw the doctor, he commented on some type of skin irritation that needed to be treated. He called his assistant and made of big production of her verifying it was present.
He finally dug around and found a sub-callous that was causing the problem and removed it. Then he said I need to come back for custom inserts (which I know insurance will not cover). I felt like I was at a used car dealership trying to sell me pinstriping, undercoating and Scotchgard. I went in for one simple procedure and came out with 2 extra, unnecessary ones, plus one future expensive one. I'm not going back. Crap like this makes me very surly.