What fills a primary care day besides visits
Practice support for primary care practices starts with an honest look at the day. A full schedule is only part of it. Around the visits sit refill requests, lab and imaging results, portal messages, forms for home health and equipment, prior authorizations, hospital discharge notices and calls to patients who are due for something.
In an independent office, a handful of people carry all of that. Gateway takes on defined parts of the administrative work, so your staff can give more of the day to patients.
Care programs that run between visits
Medicare recognizes several kinds of structured work beyond the ordinary office visit, and each has its own rules. The clinical work is yours. The administration is where most programs stall.
- Chronic care management. It depends on documented patient consent, a comprehensive care plan and a record of time spent each month. Our chronic care management program support covers enrollment tracking, planned contacts and activity logs.
- Transitional care. The clock starts at discharge, and both an early contact and a timely visit are required. Transitional care management support organizes discharge information and follow-up tasks, so the window is not missed for lack of a record.
- Annual wellness visits. Eligibility turns on dates, and the visit has required elements that differ from a physical exam. Our annual wellness visit program support handles scheduling lists and pre-visit preparation.
- Advanced primary care management. For practices weighing this newer monthly model, APCM support organizes enrollment, access arrangements and records.
Remote monitoring follows the same pattern: device onboarding, patient instructions and a clear route to clinical review. In every program, your practice confirms eligibility, and your clinicians review anything that needs clinical judgment.
Authorizations, referrals and records
Primary care orders more than it performs. Advanced imaging, some medications and many specialist services often need payer approval, and a request can stall on one missing note. With prior authorization tracking, every request has a status, a list of missing items and an expiration date that someone is watching.
Outbound referrals need the same attention. We help track whether records were sent, whether the appointment was made and whether a consult note came back to the chart.
Billing and payer enrollment
A primary care claim looks simple until a preventive visit and a problem visit fall on the same day, or a care management code meets a payer rule nobody expected. Medical billing support organizes documentation and superbills, supports claim submission and tracks payer follow-up and denials alongside your billing staff.
When a clinician joins the practice, enrollment with each payer has to be filed and followed before that clinician’s claims can go out. We track applications, information requests and renewal dates so none of them goes quiet.
Supplies and equipment for the office
Exam rooms run on recurring items: gloves, table paper, infection-control products, point-of-care test supplies and basic dressings. Our help with exam and clinical supplies turns those into a defined list with reorder points and a named person responsible. For diagnostic equipment, we help compare specifications, training, consumables and service requirements before you commit.
When a patient’s wound outgrows the office visit
Primary care usually sees a wound first. If a patient needs wound visits at home or in a facility, your office can use Gateway’s wound care referrals for primary care practices. A treating wound care clinician sees the patient. You remain the primary care clinician and stay informed. That referral pathway is separate from practice support.
What stays with your practice
Clinical decisions, medical necessity, program eligibility, final coding decisions and responsibility for claims stay with your practice. Gateway does not write orders, decide who qualifies for a program or choose codes. We prepare, track and flag, and your team decides.
How an engagement starts
Contact us through the practice support inquiry form or call 314-325-0126. We ask about your panel, your staff, your record system and where work is piling up. A sensible start is a single area, such as one care program or authorization tracking. Other areas can follow if the first proves useful.
Common questions
We have one nurse and two medical assistants. Who does the extra work a care program creates?
Settle that before enrolling anyone. Gateway can take on administrative parts of a program, such as enrollment status, consent records, planned-contact lists and activity documentation. Clinical review and anything requiring judgment stay with your team, and who may furnish billable care management time is governed by rules your practice confirms. In the first conversation we map each task to a person, so you can see what would remain with your staff.
Can Gateway work inside our electronic health record?
We work with the tools you already use, within the access your practice grants and under your privacy and security rules. What that looks like depends on the record system and the task. Some work can be done from exported lists or reports, and some needs direct access. That is sorted out before any work begins, and your practice controls the access throughout.
Most of our patients are older adults on Medicare. Where should we look first?
It depends on where your staff lose the most time, but two places are common. Transitional care deserves a look if discharge notices reach you late or follow-up visits are often booked outside the required window. Annual wellness visits deserve a look if many eligible patients have not had one. We do not project revenue for either. Both are areas where organized tracking helps.
Does Gateway provide clinicians to see our patients?
Not through practice support, which helps your own team with administrative work. Separately, Gateway coordinates wound care and primary care visits delivered by partner clinicians for patients at home and in facilities. If one of your patients needs wound visits where they live, your office can refer and stay informed. The treating clinician makes the clinical decisions at those visits.