Primary care at home in Downtown St. Louis.

House call primary care in Downtown St. Louis

Downtown St. Louis is built for offices and events more than for everyday errands, and many residents rely on transit, rides from friends or a long walk to reach a doctor. Older adults in senior apartment buildings and people recovering after a hospital stay can easily miss follow-up. In-home primary care closes that distance. A partner clinician visits the apartment, reviews medications, checks on blood pressure, diabetes and other ongoing conditions, and notes what support the person has in the building. Gateway arranges the visit and shares records with hospital specialists.

Homes in Downtown St. Louis are almost all multi-unit: converted lofts, high-rise apartment towers, senior apartment buildings and a smaller number of condominiums. Skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers lie a short distance away in neighboring parts of the city. Gateway arranges partner clinician visits to all of these settings. Before a downtown visit we confirm how to get past the front door, whether a building manager needs notice, and where the clinician can leave a car. We also ask where supply deliveries should go, since packages are handled differently in each building.

For the full range of services, see primary care in St. Louis, including house calls, annual wellness visits and follow-up after a hospital stay.

What the clinician can look at

Medications are often where a home visit starts. With the bottles on the table, the treating clinician can compare what is prescribed with what you take, including over-the-counter products, vitamins and supplements. Lists tend to drift after a hospital stay or when several prescribers are involved, and a medication review at home can catch duplicates, gaps and doses that no longer match. Any change is the clinician’s decision, so keep taking your medicines as prescribed until you are told otherwise.

From there the visit moves to the rest of your health: how long-term conditions are doing, what a recent hospital stay left unfinished, whether a wellness visit is due, and which tests or specialist appointments need to be arranged.

Who in-home primary care is for

Getting to a doctor’s office is the hard part for many people in Downtown St. Louis. Stairs, a wheelchair, an oxygen tank, no longer driving, or needing a second person just to reach the car can turn a short appointment into a full day. In-home primary care is arranged for adults in that position, whether or not they think of themselves as homebound. Our page on primary care for homebound adults goes into detail.

It also suits people recovering from surgery or living with a wound, residents of assisted living, and anyone whose longtime doctor has retired or moved and who has gone without primary care since.

Why wound care and primary care go together

Blood sugar is one of the clearest links between primary care and wound healing. When blood sugar runs high, the body repairs tissue more slowly and has a harder time fighting infection. The wound care clinician works on the wound itself. The primary care clinician manages the diabetes behind it: reviewing readings, ordering lab tests and deciding on medication changes. Read more under diabetes care at home.

When Gateway coordinates both, neither clinician is working blind. If a foot wound stalls, the primary care clinician hears about it. If diabetes medicines change, the wound care team knows to watch how the wound responds.

Wound care in Downtown St. Louis →

Where visits take place

Skilled nursing works differently from the other places where Gateway arranges primary care follow-up. Every resident already has an attending physician who is responsible for medical care, and facility nurses carry out the orders. We do not replace that team. In facilities in Downtown St. Louis, we coordinate with the attending and the nursing staff, and we plan follow-up for the day a resident leaves. See primary care follow-up in skilled nursing.

After discharge, a partner clinician can visit at the next address, whether that is a private home, an apartment, assisted living or memory care.

One care team, shared information

Keeping your own physician and having visits at home can go together. If you have a doctor you trust, tell us, and with your permission the visiting clinician’s notes and questions go to that office. The two clinicians then settle the practical split: who renews prescriptions, who orders tests, who signs forms, who makes specialist referrals. Ask to hear that split in plain terms early on. If you have no physician, the treating practice that visits you takes on those jobs, and Gateway keeps the records and orders organized either way.

How to arrange a visit

There are two ways to start in Downtown St. Louis. The direct one is to call 314-325-0126 and talk with a coordinator. If you would like us to call you instead, send a request for care through the website. The form asks only for a name and phone number, so please leave health details out of it. When we call back, we go over where you live, what you need and who is already part of your care, then confirm whether a partner clinician can see you there.

• County: City of St. Louis, Missouri (an independent city)
• ZIP codes: 63101, 63102, 63103
• Nearby hospitals: SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital; Barnes-Jewish Hospital (not affiliated with Gateway)
• Nearby communities: St. Louis City, Central West End, North St. Louis, South St. Louis
• Care settings: Private homes, skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care and rehabilitation

Insurance and coverage

You can ask Gateway about Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial insurance when you call. We cannot tell you over the phone that a visit is a covered benefit, because that depends on three things: the treating practice that would see you, the details of your plan and the care the clinician finds you need. What we can do is tell you which practice would be involved, so you can confirm with your plan before the first visit. The insurance page lists questions worth asking.

Common questions

Related pages

• Downtown St. Louis
• Primary care
• In-home primary care
• Primary care and wound care together
• Primary care at home
• Primary care at home
• Primary care at home