Stephens Memorial Hospital Administrator Matthew Kempton told board members at Thursday night’s Board of Directors meeting that he has set Nov. 6 as the launch date for the hospital’s planned after-hours Urgent Care Clinic.
He said that date will be the beginning of the first full week of November and it will give the hospital staff a couple of months to continue working out the details for launching the clinic.
According to Kempton, the clinic will provide urgent-care services in Breckenridge at night and on weekends and holidays. He said the clinic is designed for patients who want to see a doctor but whose care needs are not serious enough to require an Emergency Room visit.
“It’s more of a clinic-type thing, fever, headaches, you know, a number of things they could be experiencing,” Kempton said. “It’s not really something that should be seen in the ER. And they don’t want to get a $3,000 ER bill. They just want to come in and be seen and go home.”
He said current plans call for the clinic to operate from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Friday, to be open 24 hours on Saturday and Sunday and to close at 6 a.m. on Monday. It will also be open on holidays.
Kempton said patients will enter the Urgent Care Clinic through the south entry door of the nursing wing next to the Emergency Room patient entrance. He said signs will be added above the entrance to show patients where to enter the clinic. They will then sign in at the nurses’ station, take number and wait in a sitting area set up in the emergency room area for urgent care patients. .
Services at the clinic will be paid-only, requiring payment up front. He said patients with insurance will have to make their co-payment up front and patients without insurance will have to pay a $100 fee upfront. SMH will pay the physician $40 out of the $100 fee for their service, and in return the physician agrees not to bill the patient.
He said patients will sign a form explaining how urgent care worked and that it is a paid-only service. He also said they will be informed that if the physician determines the patient’s condition is more serious and requires they be transferred to the emergency room, they have the right to change them to ER.
Dr. Kelli Windsor
Kempton also updated board members on the status of Dr. Kelli Windsor, who is a Breckenridge High School graduate. He said she has already signed a contract in with Stephens Memorial Hospital and will begin work at the Breckenridge Medical Clinic on Oct. 2.
Kempton said Dr. Windsor has finished her residency and is waiting on her Texas medical license and some other credentials to come in, which he said she should receive shortly.
“They have already started making appointment with her,” Kempton said. “People have already started calling requesting to get on her schedule.”
Kempton also said Dr. Randy Daniell, an OB/GYN based in Abilene, will began seeing patients in Breckenridge beginning Sept. 6.
He said like the other specialists who travel from Abilene to see patients, Dr. Daniell will be in Breckenridge every other week and will work out of office space in the back hallway of SMH. He will provide pre-natal and post-natal care for women, and because SMH has ultrasound capabilities, Dr. Daniell will be able to utilize them.
Kempton said Dr. Windsor, whose practice will focus on family medicine, will also provide pre-natal care, and she will be based in Breckenridge.
“That is one of the reasons we’re excited about (Dr. Windsor). Not only is she from here, she can do pre-natal all the way up to delivery,” Kempton said. “The delivery happens in Abilene. But at least for that pre-natal, the woman doesn’t have to drive to Abilene every time she has an appointment.”
He also said if patients already have a relationship with Dr. Daniell, now instead of having to drive to Abilene, they can meet with him here since he’ll be in Breckenridge twice a month.
“There may be some patents Dr. Windsor refers to Dr. Daniell because they are more critical in nature. Or have higher level of care,” Kempton said “Maybe they are a high-risk pregnancy. Maybe in the past they’ve had a C-section or other issues. In those cases, she would probably refer those patients to Dr. Daniell. They’ll work together in kind of a partnership in that way. It’ll be good for people here.”
Also during the Thursday’s meeting, Stacy Crumpler and Weston Black with Clarity Diagnostics in Keller gave board members an overview of how operations of their lab sample-testing partnership with SMH will work.
Their company recently signed a contract with the hospital to have SMH’s lab facilities and staff perform lab tests on samples brought in from doctors and clinics around the state.
To expedite the delivery of the samples and avoid problems in transit, the samples will be delivered to SMH through a courier provided by Clarity Diagnostics. They will then be processed at the lab and the results sent back to the clinics and physicians.
Kempton said SMH has been offering the service for a year now as a way to bring in additional revenue to the hospital. He said they have worked with another company during the past year but found a better deal with Clarity Diagnostics.
“It’s an additional service we can offer,” Kempton said. “We have more equipment now because we started it a year ago. With the prior company, we brought on additional lab analyzers to be able to do more tests on site. So we can do a lot more different types of tests here on-site than we could do in the past.”
He said it’s also a benefit for the local community to have that extra equipment located at the hospital because the hospital can provide more on-site tests for Breckenridge doctors and patients.
The SMH board will hold a public hearing on the Hospital District budget and proposed tax rate at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 21. Kempton said copies of the proposed budget will be available at the public hearing. After the public hearing, the board will hold a meeting to approve the tax rate and budget.
Story by Tony Pilkington
Cutline for top photo: Weston Black (right) and Stacy Clumper with Clarity Diagnostics give Stephens Memorial Hospital District board members an overview of how operations of their lab sample-testing partnership with SMH will work during Thursday night’s meeting. Their company recently signed a contract with the hospital to have SMH’s lab facilities and staff perform lab tests on samples brought in from doctors and clinics around the state. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
