Primary care at home in Ferguson.

House call primary care in Ferguson

Transportation is often what stands between people in Ferguson and regular primary care. A bus trip with a transfer, or waiting on a relative with a car, is hard enough when you feel well and harder with swollen legs, shortness of breath or a healing wound. In-home primary care follow-up removes the trip. A partner clinician comes to the house or apartment, checks on conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease, reviews medications, and coordinates with specialists. Gateway sets up the visits and keeps the records moving.

In Ferguson you will see older frame and brick houses near the center of town, ranch homes in later subdivisions, and apartment complexes along the busier roads. Some households have three generations under one roof, and some older adults live alone. Skilled nursing, rehabilitation and assisted living facilities serve Ferguson and the neighboring cities. Gateway arranges partner clinician visits in homes, apartments and facilities alike. We ask who helps the patient day to day, because the treating clinician’s instructions need to reach that person, whether a daughter, a home aide or a charge nurse.

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 a visit can cover

Most in-home primary care follow-up centers on long-term conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, lung disease and kidney disease. At a visit, the treating clinician checks your vital signs, asks what has changed since last time, looks at any readings you keep at home and decides whether the plan needs adjusting.

The same visit can take in a review of your medications, follow-up after a hospital stay, a yearly wellness visit, or orders for tests and specialist appointments. People living with two or more ongoing conditions can also ask about chronic care management, which adds check-ins and care planning between visits. Gateway arranges the visit and keeps track of what the clinician orders afterward.

People who benefit most

A move into assisted living often breaks the link with a longtime doctor. The office may now be far away, and each appointment needs a ride, an escort and half a day. Gateway arranges primary care in assisted living for residents in Ferguson, so the clinician comes to the apartment and the community’s nurse can hear the plan directly.

People in private homes ask for the same help for different reasons. Travel has become unsafe or exhausting, an operation or a wound is keeping them at home for a while, or they have not had a primary care clinician in years.

Why wound care and primary care go together

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 Ferguson →

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 Ferguson, 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

One question clears up a lot of confusion: who do I call for what? When several offices are involved, a refill request or a new symptom can bounce between them. At the start of care, ask the treating clinician’s practice how to reach them between visits and which problems should go to them, to your longtime physician, to a specialist or to the home health nurse. Write the answers down and keep them by the phone. For scheduling, records, supplies and anything that seems stuck, Gateway is the number to call.

Getting started in Ferguson

Some people in Ferguson come to primary care through another door. If Gateway already coordinates wound care for you, tell your coordinator that you would like primary care follow-up too. We already have your address and contact details. If you are in a hospital or rehab center, the discharge planner can make a referral before you leave. Facility nurses and physician offices can do the same by phone at 314-325-0126 or by fax at 314-786-7966. Whoever starts the request, we confirm availability before anything is scheduled.

• County: St. Louis County, Missouri
• ZIP codes: 63135
• Nearby hospitals: Christian Hospital in North County; SSM Health DePaul Hospital in Bridgeton (not affiliated with Gateway)
• Nearby communities: Florissant, Hazelwood, North County, North St. Louis, Bridgeton
• 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

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