Diabetic foot ulcers, leg ulcers, and wounds that will not heal, treated by board-certified podiatric physicians and surgeons. Three clinics in Chicago's south suburbs: Homewood, South Chicago Heights, and Mokena.
Same-week wound evaluations. Medicare and most insurance accepted. No referral needed for most plans.
Book an evaluation if a wound on your foot or lower leg has not clearly improved in two weeks, keeps reopening, or shows spreading redness, warmth, drainage, odor, or fever. If you have diabetes, neuropathy, or poor circulation, do not wait two weeks. Those wounds can go from minor to limb-threatening in days, and early treatment is the single biggest factor in avoiding hospitalization or amputation.
Medically reviewed by Dr. Julia Shauger, DPM and Dr. Timothy Horak, DPM, board-certified podiatric physicians and surgeons. Last reviewed August 2026.
Most cuts and scrapes heal on their own. But a wound on the foot or lower leg that has not improved in two weeks almost always has an underlying reason: poor circulation, repetitive pressure, infection, biofilm, or unmanaged diabetes. It will not close until that root cause is treated, and changing the dressing more often does not fix any of them.
This is why patients often arrive having had the same wound for months. The wound was being covered, not treated. The first visit here is about finding the reason it is stalled, then correcting it: debriding the dead tissue that physically blocks healing, taking pressure off the wound, confirming there is enough blood flow to heal, and matching the dressing to the wound rather than to habit.
The stakes are specific. Roughly one in four people with diabetes will develop a foot ulcer, and a diabetic foot ulcer precedes the majority of lower-limb amputations. The wounds that do badly are almost never the ones treated early.
Wound and ulcer management is the clinical focus of Dr. Julia Shauger, DPM, who founded American Surgeons Group in 2002 and is board certified by the American Podiatric Medical Association. Her practice centers on diabetic wound care, vascular insufficiency, and lymphedema, the three problems behind most wounds that refuse to close.
She practices alongside Dr. Timothy Horak, DPM, who brings nearly three decades of foot and ankle surgical experience and hospital privileges at Franciscan Health Olympia Fields, Franciscan St. James Health, and Ingalls Memorial Hospital. That matters for wound care specifically: when a wound needs surgical debridement, bone resection, or admission, it is handled by the same practice rather than restarted somewhere else.
Pressure-point ulcers on diabetic feet, treated with offloading, debridement, and infection control to prevent the complications that lead to amputation.
Learn more →Circulation-related wounds on the lower legs and ankles. Venous ulcers need compression, arterial ulcers need blood flow restored first, and treating one like the other makes it worse.
Learn more →Wounds from prolonged sitting or lying, including heel and ankle pressure injuries in seniors, wheelchair users, and post-hospital patients.
Learn more →Red, draining, or worsening wounds needing urgent debridement, culture-guided antibiotics, and assessment for deeper bone involvement.
Learn more →Incisions that have separated, stalled, or become infected after foot or ankle surgery, including wounds from procedures done elsewhere.
Learn more →Any wound open longer than four weeks. Stalled wounds almost always have an underlying cause that has to be found and corrected before they will close.
Learn more →Not every wound needs every one of these. The point of the first visit is deciding which ones your wound actually needs.
Removing dead and devitalized tissue is the single highest-impact thing done at a wound visit. Biofilm and necrotic tissue physically block new tissue from forming, and most stalled wounds restart after proper debridement. Performed in-office, usually at every visit.
A diabetic foot ulcer will not close while you keep walking on it. We use removable walkers, total contact casting, and custom offloading to take pressure off the wound bed. This is the step most often skipped elsewhere and the most common reason an ulcer stays open for months.
Alginates, foams, hydrogels, collagen, and antimicrobial silver dressings each suit a different wound. Matching the dressing to drainage level and tissue type matters far more than how often it gets changed.
For ulcers that have failed 30 days of standard care, cellular and tissue-based products can jump-start closure by supplying a biologic scaffold and growth factors. Applied in-office, covered by Medicare when the medical necessity criteria are documented.
Venous leg ulcers heal on compression and stall without it. We fit multi-layer compression and long-term maintenance stockings, and we confirm arterial flow first so compression is safe to apply.
Cultures to guide antibiotics rather than guessing, plus imaging when a wound probes to bone or sits over a bony prominence. Osteomyelitis found late is what turns a treatable ulcer into a surgical problem.
Non-invasive vascular testing when pulses are diminished, and direct referral to vascular surgery when a wound cannot heal without revascularization. A wound without blood flow will not close no matter what dressing goes on it.
When conservative care is not enough, our board-certified foot and ankle surgeons handle surgical debridement, bone resection, and reconstruction with hospital privileges at Franciscan Health Olympia Fields, Franciscan St. James, and Ingalls Memorial.
We measure the wound, assess depth and tissue type, check for infection and bone involvement, and test circulation to find why it is not healing.
Debridement of dead tissue, the right dressing for your wound type, and offloading to remove pressure. Treatment usually starts the same day.
Follow-ups track measurable progress against a timeline, and we correct the root cause so the wound does not reopen after it closes.
Wound care is available at all three ASG Foot & Ankle offices. Call (708) 799-7500 and mention it is an open wound so it gets scheduled as a wound visit.
Medically necessary wound care is covered by Medicare Part B and by most commercial plans. That includes the evaluation, sharp debridement, offloading devices, advanced dressings, and skin substitute grafts when the documented criteria are met.
Most patients do not need a referral. Podiatrists are direct-access providers under Medicare and the majority of commercial plans, so you can book straight in. Some HMO plans still require one, and our staff confirms that when we verify your benefits before treatment starts.
See the insurance plans we accept →Patients travel to our wound clinics from across the south suburbs and Will County.
A skin substitute graft is a 15 minute office procedure, and it is meant to disappear before your next visit.
Skin Substitute Grafts Explained →Pressure is what keeps a foot ulcer open. Why the device you cannot remove beats the boot you can.
Offloading a Foot Ulcer →What each alarm actually means, why the dressing changes hurt, and what to ask for instead of enduring it.
Wound VAC at Home →Ordinary swelling clears overnight. When it does not, the skin becomes the problem to solve.
Lymphedema in the Legs and Feet →In a foot with neuropathy that is Charcot until proven otherwise, and the window to protect it is short.
Charcot Foot: Stages and Recovery →The burning is what people ask about. The numbness is the symptom that costs feet.
Diabetic Neuropathy in the Feet →See a specialist if a wound has not clearly improved in two weeks, shows signs of infection (spreading redness, warmth, drainage, odor, fever), keeps reopening, or if you have diabetes or poor circulation. Those wounds can deteriorate quickly, and the two-week mark is the point where a wound stops being a normal healing wound and starts being a stalled one.
We hold same-week appointments for open and draining wounds, and we can usually see urgent wounds within one to two business days. Call (708) 799-7500 and tell the front desk it is an open wound so it gets triaged correctly.
Most patients do not. Podiatrists are direct-access providers under Medicare and most commercial plans, so you can book without a referral from your primary care doctor. A few HMO plans require one, and our staff checks that when we verify your benefits.
Yes. Medically necessary wound care, including debridement, offloading, advanced dressings, and skin substitute grafts when criteria are met, is covered by Medicare Part B and by most commercial plans. Our staff verifies your specific benefits before treatment begins so there are no surprises.
The difference is finding and fixing the reason the wound is stalled rather than just re-dressing it. That means debriding dead tissue that blocks healing, taking pressure off the wound, checking circulation, culturing when infection is suspected, and matching the dressing to the wound type. A wound that has been getting the same bandage for two months usually closes once the underlying cause is corrected.
Most diabetic foot ulcers that respond to treatment close within 4 to 12 weeks, and venous leg ulcers typically take 12 to 24 weeks with proper compression. The strongest predictor is early progress: a wound that shrinks measurably in the first four weeks is very likely to close.
ASG Foot & Ankle treats wounds at three south suburban clinics: Homewood (1757 Ridge Rd), South Chicago Heights (3042 S Chicago Rd), and Mokena (19638 S LaGrange Rd). Call (708) 799-7500 to book at the location nearest you.
The earlier a stalled wound is treated, the faster and safer it heals. Book online or call (708) 799-7500. Homewood, South Chicago Heights & Mokena.