Classic list

In the fourth annual Back to School Bash put on by Stephens Memorial Hospital, incoming Buckaroos and Broncos were invited to the hospital’s dining from 4pm to 6pm to receive a bag of important school supplies and snow cones as a refreshing treat on Thursday, July 24.  Students were required to be present to receive a bag, but did not have to be enrolled in Breckenridge school district as surrounding area students were also eligible for the gift.  The Buckaroo green back pack bags received by the students read GO BUCKS and included paper, crayons, notebooks, highlighters and other supplies.  All donations for the students came from Hospital staff and some patients or visitors to the Hospital between July 7th – July 21st.  The team reached their goal of filling 200 bags to give away to the students.  At the event, the line of students and their parents extended out the door and down the halls of SMH where over 175 bags were handed out with the remaining bags being donated to the BISD Fill the Bus campaign.  Also on site at the Back to School Bash was Solaris Healthcare who gave out delicious and refreshing show cones.  A representative from Breckenridge Medical Center, the adjacent Clinic run by the Hospital, was also present handing out information about the clinic and immunizations.  The SMH Rewards and Recognition Committee would like to thank everyone who donated supplies or contributed monetary donations and making this annual event a huge success.

Photo courtesy Tony Pilkington / Breckenridge Texan

Stephens Memorial Hospital has partnered with Moncrief Cancer Institute in Fort Worth to bring FREE mammograms to the residents of Stephens County and the surrounding area.  Breast cancer is second-most lethal cancer in women with an estimated 1 in 8 females predicted get breast cancer in their lifetime. Screening is key to catching breast cancer when it is most treatable.

The free screening mammograms are available for females aged 40 to 74 who have not had a mammogram in the past year and are not experiencing symptoms. Women with symptoms such as a lump, pain, swelling or discharge need a more advanced diagnostic mammogram and should contact their primary care provider.

Uninsured or underinsured women of the community can book appointments now.  The free mammogram appointments will be available every third Tuesday of the month beginning July 15, 2025.  The mammograms will be performed at Stephens Memorial Hospital at 200 S. Geneva St. in Breckenridge, Texas.

To schedule an appointment, please call 800-405-7739.  Appointments are required and available on a first-come, first-served basis. Appointments fill up quickly, so call early.  Funding for screenings is provided by Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).

Stephens Memorial Hospital (SMH) Radiology Department has recently been awarded a three-year term of accreditation in mammography as the result of a review by the American College of Radiology (ACR).  The ACR gold seal of accreditation represents the highest level of image quality and patient safety. It is awarded only to facilities meeting ACR Practice Parameters and Technical Standards after a peer-review evaluation by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field.

As technology continues to evolve, the Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging department at Stephens Memorial Hospital is working to stay at the forefront of medical services.  Just this past April, SMH added a 3D Mammography machine, the Aspire Cristalle, to ensure each exam to be noticeably more comfortable with improved diagnostic accuracy and less of a chance for a false positive result.

Story by Alex Kielar of the Breckenridge American

Stephens Memorial Hospital has officially been designated a critical access hospital (CAH) as it makes the conversion from a Prospective Payment System (PPS) facility. To fully complete the transition, SMH will have to redo some of its reimbursement rates. Once the hospital knows what their rates for CAH will be, it will prompt them to start looking towards negotiating, as they will know what numbers they will need to work towards.

CEO Gena Speer made the announcement of the hospital receiving that designation at the latest SMH board of directors meeting Thursday, June 28.

In receiving the critical access designation, the hospital board also voted to join the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals (TORCH) Clinically Integrated Network. Speer said that it is something that came up about two years ago, and there are about 37 hospitals and 70 clinics in it now.

“Basically, the point in it right now is to be able to negotiate, for us as a group, on some payer contracts, specifically the value-based purchasing side of that. So anything that would give us supplemental payment or incentive payment for quality metrics, that they set for our patient population in the clinic,” Speer said. “It is $100 a year to join. There is some work involved, but they do help with providing tools to meet those metrics and things like that. It’s just really a way to kind of bring this together for more power in those negotiations.”

Speer added that this program would be specific to the clinic more than anything, but that some programs might flow over with the hospital.

A program that the hospital also became eligible for as a critical access is the 340B Program, which, in simple terms, qualifies SMH to purchase medications at a very discounted rate. For the program, the hospital will partner with W5 Pharmacy to dispense those medications, based on prescriptions that come from their contractor or employee providers.

“So it helps the patients afford their medications. We take and dispense them through W5, we pay a company to manage it,” Speer said. “They provide software, inventory management, program management and all of that, based on the prescription. So it is per prescription and per transaction.”

The company that the hospital is paying to manage the prescription program is PharmaCare Services, which Speer said they feel very comfortable with.

“You have to be careful with these kinds of companies, because some of them get into it for the wrong reasons and don’t always follow the rules exactly, and then it comes back on us,” Speer said. “I have basically zero fear of that with this company.”

The board voted to move forward with discussions regarding this program and they will have a formal contract to review in July.