AI for orthopaedic shoe technology — where it really saves time

What this is not about

AI replaces neither craft nor medical bespoke work. It does not measure a foot, assess a gait abnormality, choose a last shape or adjust an insole. Care according to a prescription is your professional and legal responsibility — and it stays that way, whatever AI vendors promise. What AI can actually do: shorten the written routines in the office. For a small to mid-sized business, that is often the only area where time is left lying on the table.

1. Structuring and wording cost estimates

Cost estimates for health insurers and private patients follow a fixed scheme, but have to be reworded again and again. You give the AI the key figures in bullet points — type of care, materials, rough scope — and have it produce a structured draft that you then fill with the actual items and prices. Important: enter no patient names, diagnoses or prescription numbers into the tool. The content has to be checked by you afterwards, because AI does not know billing codes and can get service descriptions wrong.

2. Answering enquiries and prescription queries by email

Doctors' practices, health insurers or patients ask why a prescription has not been processed yet, which documents are missing, or what stage a treatment is at. These emails can quickly sound dismissive when you write them under time pressure. Give the AI the situation in anonymous form — for example, "health insurer asks about a missing reimbursement reference, polite explanation that we are waiting for the referral" — and have it suggest a factual, friendly reply. Names, insurance numbers or diagnostic data have no place in it.

3. Preparing appointment and collection notices

Customers forget fitting appointments or no longer remember when their insoles will be ready. You write a short reminder email or text-message template once, then reuse it again and again with a changed date and name. Have the AI build you a small collection of such templates — for the first fitting, for the ready notice, for the follow-up care. You only fill in the date and first name. This does not save you hours, but it makes sure the messages actually go out instead of being left undone.

4. Replying to online reviews

Replying to Google reviews signals to potential new customers that the business is reachable and service-minded. At the same time, it is hard to respond to criticism publicly without going into details about the treatment — which is not allowed for data protection reasons. AI helps you do exactly that: factual, short, without revealing confidential content. You enter the review and ask for a draft that addresses the gist without naming names or treatment details. You check the text yourself before it goes online.

5. Website and social media info copy on insoles and bespoke shoes

"What is the difference between an off-the-shelf insole and a custom insole?" or "When is an orthopaedic bespoke shoe worth it?" — customers ask questions like these regularly. A short, clear text on your website or as a social post builds trust and saves you spoken explanations. AI can give you a first draft that you correct technically and rework in your own voice. Make sure no wording stays in that sounds like a medical promise — you check that sentence by sentence yourself.

Which tools fit?

To get started, a single chatbot — ChatGPT or Claude — is enough, used exclusively with anonymous, general texts. If you want to semi-automate standard emails and review replies on a regular basis, look at tools with EU hosting where texts are not used for training. You will find a sorted, honestly assessed overview in our AI Tools Radar — there you can filter by use case instead of digging through advertising.