Primary care at home in North St. Louis.

House call primary care in North St. Louis

Older adults often manage several conditions at once, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease or poor circulation, and regular follow-up helps catch small problems early. In North St. Louis, though, the trip to an office may take two buses or a favor from a neighbor. In-home primary care follow-up removes the trip. A partner clinician sees the patient at home, looks at the medications actually in the house and checks on ongoing conditions. Gateway sets up the visits, requests hospital and clinic records and shares the treating clinician’s orders with the family.

The housing here is mostly brick: two-story single-family homes, two-family and four-family flats, and senior apartment buildings, usually with steps up to the front door. Second-floor flats and steep stairs are a real obstacle for someone with a leg wound or poor balance. Skilled nursing facilities and assisted living are part of the picture too. Gateway arranges partner clinician visits in any of these settings. When you call, tell us about the steps, which door to use and whether someone will be home, so the visit can start without delays.

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

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

Recovering from surgery or living with a wound changes what a trip to the doctor involves. A leg that needs to stay elevated, a dressing that should stay dry, pain with sitting, or instructions to keep weight off a foot all make travel harder. For people in North St. Louis in that situation, Gateway can arrange primary care follow-up where they live, so the conditions that affect recovery are not put off until the wound has closed.

The same service helps adults who rarely leave home for other reasons, people in assisted living communities, and people who have no primary care clinician right now.

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 North St. Louis →

Where visits take place

Where you live can change during an illness: home, then a hospital, then rehab, then perhaps assisted living. Gateway arranges primary care follow-up in the following settings across North St. Louis:

• Private houses, condos and apartments
• Assisted living communities
• Memory care communities
• Skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities

If you move, tell us the new address and who is in charge of care there. We confirm whether a partner clinician is available for that location and setting, and we help get your records to the new care team so the next visit does not start from zero.

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.

Getting started in North St. Louis

Some people in North St. Louis 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: City of St. Louis, Missouri (an independent city)
• ZIP codes: 63106, 63107, 63113, 63115, 63120, 63147
• Nearby hospitals: Barnes-Jewish Hospital; SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital; Christian Hospital in North County (not affiliated with Gateway)
• Nearby communities: St. Louis City, Downtown St. Louis, Central West End, Ferguson, North County
• Care settings: Private homes, skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care and rehabilitation

What to ask about your plan

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

• North 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