Who do I call? Building your wound care contact list.

Why a contact list beats a stack of business cards

Building your wound care contact list takes one sitting, and it saves many frustrating calls later. When a wound is being cared for, several teams are usually involved: the treating clinician, a home health agency or facility nurses, a supply company, your primary care office and your health plan.

The key is to organize the list by the question you have, not by the name of the company. When the dressing box is running low or the drainage looks different, you want to see at a glance who handles that.

Organize the list by the kind of question

Make one entry for each of these, and skip any that do not apply to you:

• Changes in the wound or new symptoms. The treating wound clinician’s office, plus the home health or facility nurse if one is involved.
• Visit scheduling. Whoever sets, moves or cancels visits. For visits Gateway arranges, that is our coordination line at 314-325-0126.
• Dressing supplies and equipment. The supply company or agency that sends them, with your account or order number.
• Home health or facility care. The agency’s office and your nurse’s name, or the nursing station for your unit.
• Medications and general health. Your primary care office and your pharmacy.
• Specialists. Podiatry, vascular, surgery, diabetes care or anyone else following a condition tied to the wound.
• Coverage and bills. The member services number on your insurance card and each provider’s billing office.
• Rides. The transportation service or the person who drives you to outside appointments.
• Family and decision makers. The people who help you, and the person named to make health decisions if you cannot.

When you are unsure which team handles a question, ask each one directly: “Which questions should come to you, and which should go somewhere else?” Write the answer beside the entry. If you have both a visiting nurse and a visiting wound clinician, our comparison of home health and mobile wound care explains how the two roles differ.

Record more than a phone number

For each entry, write down:

• The person’s name or department, and the organization
• The direct number, the main number and any extension
• The hours someone answers, and how to leave a message
• What this contact handles, in your own words
• The date you last confirmed the details

For suppliers and health plans, add the reference numbers they ask for every time you call. Our guides to questions about wound supply orders and insurance and cost questions for wound care list what those offices usually need from you.

Ask about after-hours and backup plans

Questions come up at night, on weekends and when your usual contact is away. Ask the treating team two questions and write the answers at the top of the page:

1. What do I do if I have a concern about the wound when your office is closed?
2. Who do I ask for if my usual contact is not available?

Put “Emergency: 911” on the first line. Gateway is not an emergency service, and neither is a voicemail box. For help sorting urgent problems from routine ones, read when to call a wound care specialist.

Keep it where the calls happen

A few habits help:

• Keep a paper copy where you normally make calls, such as by the phone or on the refrigerator.
• Take a photo of it with your cell phone so it travels with you.
• Give a copy to each person who helps with your care. See sharing wound care responsibilities with family for ways to divide the calls.
• Tape a copy inside the cover of your wound care visit notebook.

Update it when something changes

Review yours whenever:

• A clinician, agency or supplier becomes involved, or one stops
• You leave a hospital, rehabilitation center or skilled nursing facility
• Home health visits start or end
• Your insurance plan changes
• You move, or the person who helps you changes

Cross out old entries instead of erasing them, and note the date. An old number can still be useful when you need records from a previous provider.

For visits that Gateway arranges, we keep track of which offices are involved and can tell you who handles a given question. That is part of wound care coordination. Clinical decisions stay with the treating clinician. If you do not have a wound care team yet, you can request care and we will call you back.

Common questions

Related pages

• Wound care coordination
• Wound care visit notebook
• Sharing care responsibilities
• Home health vs mobile wound care
• Wound supply order questions
• Request care
• Describing a wound change
• Diabetic foot ulcer warning signs