Primary care at home in St. Charles.

House call primary care in St. Charles

People who have spent their lives in St. Charles often have a specialist or two across the bridge in St. Louis County. As driving gets harder, those trips are the ones that get canceled. In-home primary care follow-up gives them a steady point of contact close to home. A partner clinician visits to review medications, watch chronic conditions and follow up after a hospital stay. Gateway arranges the visits, requests records from offices on both sides of the Missouri River and keeps the family informed about the treating clinician’s plan.

Near the river, St. Charles has older frame and brick houses, some with steep porch steps and narrow staircases. Farther out are ranch homes, split-levels, apartment complexes and newer villas. The city has a wide choice of senior apartments, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers. Gateway arranges partner clinician visits wherever the patient lives. In a private home we plan around the family’s routine. In a facility we coordinate with the charge nurse or wound nurse, and the treating clinician’s orders are shared with staff after each visit.

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

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.

People who benefit most

Not everyone who calls us has a doctor. Some adults in St. Charles lost theirs when a practice closed or a physician retired. Others have been in and out of hospitals and rehab and have not had a regular visit in a long time, so nobody is watching the whole picture or renewing prescriptions on schedule. Gateway can help connect you with a partner practice that makes home visits. The page on finding a primary care clinician explains how.

Home visits are also arranged for people who have a doctor but cannot get to the office, including adults with limited mobility, people healing from a wound or an operation, and assisted living residents.

How primary care supports wound healing

Swollen legs make wounds slower to heal and skin easier to break. The swelling usually has a cause somewhere else in the body, such as the heart, the kidneys, the veins or a medication. Finding that cause and managing it belongs to primary care and, at times, a specialist. Wrapping the leg and caring for the skin belongs to the wound care team.

The two depend on each other. A wound care clinician who sees a leg at every visit may be the first to notice that swelling is worse or shoes have become tight. Gateway passes that observation to the primary care clinician, who decides whether anything in the medical plan should change.

Wound care in St. Charles →

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 St. Charles. 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

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.

How to start

There are two ways to start in St. Charles. 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: St. Charles County, Missouri
• ZIP codes: 63301, 63303, 63304
• Nearby hospitals: SSM Health St. Joseph Hospital in St. Charles; Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital (not affiliated with Gateway)
• Nearby communities: St. Peters, St. Charles County, Bridgeton, Cottleville, Weldon Spring
• 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

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