TRI-COUNTY — Board members of the Big Bend Regional Hospital District (BBRHD) voted last week to partner with a new mobile imaging company, Assured Imaging, for local mammography services.
Previous El Paso-based company Desert Imaging discontinued its 10-year-running “Mammos on the Move” program in August 2024, prompting local healthcare leaders to seek a new provider for the critical preventative care service. Without a local mammography option, women have to travel hours away to Midland-Odessa or El Paso for care.
The hospital district initially considered a proposal from the Big Bend Regional Medical Center — which involved a $350,000 permanent mammogram machine for the hospital in addition to $250,000 worth of X-ray room upgrades — but decided to move forward with another mobile mammography service for now.
BBRHD Executive Director Lynette Brehm explained that she and board members Valynda Henington and Angela Juett had recently met with Assured Imaging, a nation-wide company providing 3D mammograms, about coming to the Big Bend region.
The BBRHD will pay Assured Imaging a flat rate for coming out to the area, $2,750, and aim to schedule a minimum of 30 mammograms at $250 each per day the mobile unit is dispatched.
Henington said the company is able to accommodate up to 45 patients a day, and if there is higher demand they can stay in the area for an extra full or half day at no additional charge.
If a minimum of 30 appointments a day — or $7,500 — is not met the hospital district will have to make up the difference in cost. Previous company Desert Imaging was charging the BBRHD $6,100 quarterly for the service, and patients $100 per mammogram. (Desert Imaging cited tighter state regulations and costs associated with dispatching mobile units as reasons for discontinuing the service in the region.)
Henington said she recognized that they’d be paying more with the new company, Assured Imaging, but “there is such a need” for mammograms it is worth trying out. While individuals enrolled in the county indigent care program with the hospital district receive the entire cost of their mammogram covered, board members also discussed ways to help subsidize the $250 cost for other patients in need.
After some discussion about past demand for mammograms and scheduling frequency in each of the Big Bend’s communities, the board decided to first send the new mobile mammography unit to Presidio, Terlingua and Alpine for one day each and adjust as needed. Dates and how to sign up for a mammogram with Assured Imaging have yet to be announced.
Henington said whatever the hospital district agrees to in terms of the cost of the service and potential subsidies “in the scheme of things is not a lot of money,” compared to the importance of helping local women detect early signs of breast cancer, potentially saving lives.