My name is Renee. I’m a 19-year breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed at 34 years old.
I am the director of imaging and the lead mammography technologist at Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center.
We are a federally qualified health center founded by Dr. Samuel U. Rodgers more than 55 years ago. Dr. Rodgers believed that health care is a basic human right. His vision to provide high-quality, compassionate and affordable health care to all remains our mission.
We provide primary care for adults, seniors and pediatrics, women’s health, behavioral health, dental services, lab and imaging services, with ultrasound, X-ray and 3D tomographic mammography, both diagnostic and screening.
Many of our patients come from low-resourced communities with no insurance and no way to pay for imaging exams. We understand that if a patient has to decide between feeding their family or paying for a screening mammogram for themselves, they are going to pick feeding their family.
In 2023, we performed 1,893 screening mammograms. Of those, 939 were for uninsured patients.
Thanks to the generous donations and support received, many of those self-pay screening mammograms were covered at zero cost to the patient.
As of March 2024, our Uniform Data System measure for breast cancer screening, ages 52 to 74, is 72.7% across our whole patient population. This places us first in the state of Missouri when compared with all other federally qualified health centers.
The goal is to cover the cost of every screening mammogram for uninsured patients here at Sam Rodgers.
Help us reach that goal and fulfill our mission to provide high-quality, compassionate and affordable health care to all, and continue Dr. Rodgers’ legacy, because health care is a basic human right.