Primary care at home in O’Fallon, Missouri.

Why primary care at home matters in O’Fallon

Many older adults in O’Fallon moved here to be near their children and grandchildren, leaving behind the doctor they saw for years. Finding a new office, then getting there along Highway K or Interstate 70 at an hour when a working son or daughter can drive, is harder than it sounds. In-home primary care follow-up offers a way to keep up. A partner clinician visits the house or senior community to review medications and monitor chronic conditions. Gateway requests records from previous doctors and keeps the family updated on the treating clinician’s plan.

Two-story houses with the bedrooms upstairs are the norm in many O’Fallon subdivisions, which can be a problem after surgery or when a leg wound makes stairs risky. The city also has ranch-style villas, apartments, and a growing number of senior living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing communities. Gateway arranges partner clinician visits in all of these. For a house, we ask whether the patient is staying on the main floor. For a senior community, we coordinate with the wellness or nursing staff so they receive the treating clinician’s orders.

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 a visit can cover

Coming home from a hospital or rehab stay leaves loose ends: new prescriptions, instructions read in a hurry, appointments at several offices. In-home primary care follow-up brings a clinician to you during that stretch. The treating clinician reads the discharge papers with you, sorts out which medications are new, changed or stopped, checks how you are recovering and decides which tests and appointments are still needed. Our page on follow-up care after hospital discharge explains more.

Once things settle, the visits turn to routine care. That means keeping watch on long-term conditions such as diabetes or heart disease, a yearly wellness visit, and referrals to specialists, with Gateway following through on the orders.

Who it helps

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 O’Fallon, 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.

Primary care and wound healing

Dressings are only part of what heals a wound. Primary care follow-up looks after the conditions that shape healing:

• Blood sugar, when diabetes is involved
• Circulation and swelling in the legs
• Nutrition and hydration
• Medications that affect skin, bleeding or healing
• Mobility, pressure and fall risk

When Gateway coordinates both kinds of care, information moves in both directions. Wound measurements, new symptoms, lab results and medication changes are shared between the wound care and primary care clinicians, with your permission. See primary care and wound care together.

Wound care in O'Fallon →

Care settings in O’Fallon

Apartment living adds a few practical details to a home visit. When you call about primary care in O’Fallon, tell us about the building: a buzzer or door code, a front desk, where visitors can park, whether there is an elevator. In a senior apartment building, let us know if a service coordinator or building nurse should be told about the visit.

The same arrangements apply in single-family homes, condos and a relative’s house where you are staying for a while. For residents of assisted living, memory care or a skilled nursing facility, we coordinate the visit time with the staff there.

Working with your existing doctors

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.

Getting started in O’Fallon

Here is what follows a call to 314-325-0126. First, we confirm whether a partner clinician is available for your address in O’Fallon and for your type of residence. Next, with your permission, we request records from your doctor’s office or the hospital you were in, so the clinician arrives informed. Then we schedule the visit. After the visit, we follow through on what the clinician ordered, whether that is lab work, equipment or a referral, and keep the people you choose up to date.

• County: St. Charles County, Missouri
• ZIP codes: 63366, 63368
• Nearby hospitals: Progress West Hospital in O'Fallon; Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital; SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital in Lake Saint Louis (not affiliated with Gateway)
• Nearby communities: St. Peters, Lake St. Louis, Wentzville, Dardenne Prairie, Cottleville
• Care settings: Private homes, skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care and rehabilitation

Coverage questions

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

• O'Fallon, Missouri
• Primary care
• In-home primary care
• Primary care and wound care together
• Primary care at home
• Primary care at home
• Primary care at home