Primary care at home in Chesterfield.

In-home primary care in Chesterfield

In Chesterfield, the hard part of staying healthy at home is often getting to the office. Medical buildings cluster along Olive Boulevard and near the hospitals, but parking decks, long hallways and waiting rooms wear out someone who is recovering or who has stopped driving. In-home primary care brings a partner clinician to the house or senior apartment for follow-up on blood pressure, diabetes, medications and recovery after a hospital stay, with notes shared with the regular doctor.

Homes in Chesterfield are mostly single-family houses on generous lots, many with two stories, a finished basement and a garage entry. The city also has a large number of senior campuses, so a parent may move from a house off Olive to an independent living apartment and later to assisted living or skilled nursing within a few miles. Gateway arranges wound care and primary care visits by partner clinicians in each of those places, and we update the plan when the address changes.

This page is part of Gateway's guide to primary care in St. Louis, which covers house calls, wellness visits and chronic care across the region.

What in-home primary care includes

A good share of primary care happens after the clinician leaves. A blood test has to be drawn, an imaging appointment booked, a specialist’s report sent back and read. When the treating clinician writes an order, Gateway follows it through and keeps the results moving to the people who need them. Depending on where you live, some tests can be arranged at home. Others mean a trip, and we can help with lab and imaging coordination and transportation arrangements.

The visits themselves cover what you would expect from a primary care office: long-term conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, a full medication review, follow-up after a hospital stay and a yearly wellness visit.

Who in-home primary care is for

In-home primary care fits a few common situations across Chesterfield:

• You are homebound, or leaving the house takes equipment, planning and another person’s help
• You are healing from an operation or a wound, and car rides are painful or against instructions
• You live in an assisted living community, and getting to outside appointments is difficult
• You have no primary care clinician, or have not seen one since a hospital stay

You do not have to fit neatly into one group. Tell us what makes office visits hard, and we will check whether a partner clinician can see you where you live.

How primary care supports wound healing

A wound on the leg or foot needs blood flow to heal, and checking circulation is partly a primary care job. The primary care clinician asks about leg pain with walking, checks the pulses in your feet, reviews risks such as smoking, diabetes and high cholesterol, and decides whether a circulation test or a vascular specialist is needed. The page on circulation and vascular health explains the basics.

Those results matter to the wound care clinician, because poor arterial flow changes which treatments are safe, including compression. Gateway sends test results and specialist notes to both clinicians, so each one is working from the same facts.

Wound care in Chesterfield →

Homes, assisted living and skilled nursing

In an assisted living community, a primary care visit involves more people than the resident and the clinician. Staff often manage medications and watch for day-to-day changes, so new orders need to reach the community’s nurse in writing, and staff observations need to reach the clinician. Gateway handles that back-and-forth for residents in Chesterfield. Read more about primary care in assisted living.

Visits are arranged in private homes, apartments, memory care and skilled nursing as well. Each community has its own rules for outside clinicians, so we check those along with availability.

Keeping your current physician involved

People who need home visits often have several specialists: a cardiologist, a kidney doctor, an endocrinologist, a vascular surgeon. Each one manages a piece. Primary care is where the pieces are put side by side, so that a new heart medicine is checked against the kidney plan and no test is ordered twice. The treating clinician decides when a referral is needed. Gateway handles the logistics of specialist referrals: sending records ahead, arranging the appointment and transportation, and getting the specialist’s note back to the primary care clinician.

How to start

You can make the call for someone else. If your parent, spouse or neighbor in Chesterfield needs primary care at home, phone 314-325-0126 and tell us your relationship and how to reach you. We will ask whether the person knows about the request and who should be the main contact for scheduling. Before records are gathered or a visit is set, the patient, or the person who legally makes their health decisions, needs to agree. After that, you can be as involved as the patient wants you to be.

• County: St. Louis County, Missouri
• ZIP codes: 63005, 63017
• Nearby hospitals: St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield; Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Creve Coeur; Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital in Creve Coeur; Missouri Baptist Medical Center in Town and Country (not affiliated with Gateway)
• Nearby communities: Chesterfield and West County, Ballwin, Wildwood, Creve Coeur, Maryland Heights, Ellisville
• Care settings: Private homes, skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care and rehabilitation

Coverage questions

The visit itself is not the only thing to ask about. Lab tests, imaging, medical equipment and supplies are usually billed by whoever provides them, under their own rules. Programs that add support between visits, such as chronic care management or remote monitoring, are billed separately from visits and may carry their own cost share, so ask about that before you enroll. Gateway does not quote prices. The treating practice and your health plan are the sources for what you would owe.

Common questions

Related pages

• Chesterfield
• Primary care
• In-home primary care
• Primary care and wound care together
• Primary care at home
• Primary care at home
• Primary care at home