The claim above that you only owe 3 years after residency is incorrect (not trying to come at you Tabasco). It is 2 years for every one year that they pay for. Additionally, getting out of the military as an officer is somewhat a little harder than being enlisted. You need to jump through hoops such as resigning your commission etc when you retire. At that point, you would be approximately 9 years into your time in service, and they will through the kitchen table at your to try and retain you in their ranks.
HPSP
does not cover podiatry school, it only covers MD/DO or DDS/DMD, regardless of what the Navy's official website tells you, it is incorrect. No matter what you read online or other forums, I can assure you that it will not cover podiatry school (coming from someone who is in the Army who has tried to look at several different payment options for medical school and fought many times to get the HPSP and got a middle finger to the face since it isn't MD/DO).
HSCP through the Navy does cover podiatry school from what I understand. You would need to contact a recruiter during your 3rd year of podiatry school and you would become what is called a direct commissioner (I too spoke with a Naval recruiter and this is what he told me). On top of that you would need to attend some type of Officer development school or program through the Navy.
If you were to received HSCP during your time in podiatry school, you would be paid full salary of an O-1 (Ensign in the Navy). I have attached a DoD pay chart to the bottom of this to show you how the pay scale increases with rank as well as time in service. Once you graduate podiatry school, you would be promoted to O-3 (Lieutenant in the Navy). From what I understand, HSCP works on the back end, meaning you would need to take out your own loans (if applicable) and they would "reimburse" you for those loans once your start working for them as a podiatrist.
Any one year of school they pay for, you owe two years in return. Those years that you owe back to them come after your residency, and your residency years do not count towards your service obligation.
Speaking from the Army stand point, the need for podiatrists has significantly decreased from my understanding. My friends dad is a medical recruiter for the Army and they needed a whooping ZERO podiatrists for FY 20 he told me.
I have also heard from many sources from the Navy that they are significantly down scaling their podiatric strength.
I am unsure about the Air Force.
There are a lot of nit picky stipulations that they don't tell you or present to the public, so make sure you do your homework and talk to as many recruiters as possible who aren't licking their chops to try and just recruit you for their numbers to meet their quota.
Here you can find the pay scale for the military. You will want to look for the region that has the letter "O" followed by a number, because you would be a commissioned officer as a podiatrist in the military. OR since you are prior service, look for "OE".
