Oatmeal Healthoatmealhealth.com · public-data estimate, October 2026

Appalachian Regional Healthcare

Lung screening gap across 19 counties in Kentucky and West Virginia

33,000to48,000adults in its service area qualify for lung cancer screening and are not being screened

About 720 people here are diagnosed with lung cancer each year, and 69% are found at a late stage, when it is hardest to treat.

Explore the screening network
KYVATNOHNCWV
19 counties14 acute care hospitalsService area
41,000 to 59,000adults likely qualify under USPSTF 2021 criteria (estimate)
460lung cancer deaths a year in these counties, 2020 to 2024
19.2%of eligible adults screened in these states, vs 18.2% nationally

Estimates from public data only; no patient information. Sources and method below.

Where the eligible adults live

The counties where most of Appalachian Regional Healthcare's Medicare inpatients live. Darker areas hold more adults who likely qualify, which is where outreach would start. Hover or tap any area for its estimate.

Adults likely eligible, per neighborhood

0+220+270+310+350+400+480+

Acute care hospital in this system

Counties in the service area

CountyStateAdults likely eligibleLung cancer deaths per 100kMedicare screens billed locally, 2024
Raleigh CountyWest Virginia5,400 to 8,60053.568
Pike CountyKentucky5,000 to 7,00065.4150
Fayette CountyWest Virginia3,200 to 5,30056.0None billed locally
Floyd CountyKentucky2,800 to 4,20072.5118
Knox CountyKentucky2,400 to 3,30072.0None billed locally
Bell CountyKentucky2,000 to 3,10070.1None billed locally
Harlan CountyKentucky2,500 to 3,00067.7None billed locally
Perry CountyKentucky2,100 to 3,00076.7None billed locally
Mingo CountyWest Virginia2,300 to 2,90067.2None billed locally
Letcher CountyKentucky1,500 to 2,70053.9None billed locally
Wyoming CountyWest Virginia2,000 to 2,60056.8None billed locally
Johnson CountyKentucky2,100 to 2,60054.7None billed locally
Knott CountyKentucky1,300 to 1,80068.9None billed locally
Summers CountyWest Virginia1,100 to 1,80039.7None billed locally
Morgan CountyKentucky1,200 to 1,60059.4None billed locally
Breathitt CountyKentucky1,100 to 1,50074.2None billed locally
Magoffin CountyKentucky1,200 to 1,40055.9None billed locally
Martin CountyKentucky1,000 to 1,20063.2None billed locally
Leslie CountyKentucky870 to 1,20076.7None billed locally

16 of the 19 counties had no Medicare lung screening reads billed from a local address in 2024. County names link to their Missing Millions page.

What closing the gap would mean

If screening in these counties rose from 19.2% to 24.2%, five points above today, about 2,100 to 3,000 more people would be screened each year.

In the National Lung Screening Trial, low-dose CT screening lowered lung cancer deaths by 20% compared with chest X-ray. Today about 69% of lung cancers here are found at a late stage.

Illustrative estimate: eligible adults (range) times the change in screening rate. Not a forecast or a guarantee.

Each year in these counties

720new lung cancers
500found at a late stage
460lung cancer deaths

NCI and CDC State Cancer Profiles, annual averages.

Screening at Appalachian Regional Healthcare today

Clinicians at Appalachian Regional Healthcare locations billed 118 low-dose CT lung screening reads to Medicare fee-for-service in 2024. Including Medicare Advantage and other insurers, we estimate about 320 to 840 screenings a year.

Most adults who qualify see a primary care clinician every year. We count 272 primary care clinicians, 7 pulmonologists and 0 thoracic surgeons practicing at Appalachian Regional Healthcare locations. A 20 pack-year smoking history is often missing from structured EHR fields, so many eligible patients are never flagged.

CMS Medicare Physician and Other Practitioners 2024 (CPT 71271); clinicians matched to Appalachian Regional Healthcare by practice address using the AHRQ Compendium of U.S. Health Systems 2023, so reads billed by outside radiology groups are not included. The all-payer estimate scales Medicare fee-for-service by the local Medicare Advantage share (64%, CMS) and, at the high end, by the share of eligible adults under 65 (62%).

14 acute care hospitals

  • Hazard ArhHazard, KY
  • Whitesburg ArhWhitesburg, KY
  • Tug Valley ArhSouth Williamson, KY
  • Beckley ArhBeckley, WV
  • Highlands Regional Medical CenterPrestonsburg, KY
  • Harlan ArhHarlan, KY
  • Middlesboro ArhMiddlesboro, KY
  • Paintsville Arh HospitalPaintsville, KY
  • Barbourville Arh HospitalBarbourville, KY
  • Mary Breckinridge HospitalHyden, KY
  • Mcdowell ArhMcdowell, KY
  • Morgan Co. ArhWest Liberty, KY

And 2 more acute care hospitals.

Find them, reach them, give radiologists a second opinion

LungIQ Find

Reads clinical notes, diagnoses and medications in the EHR and returns a ranked list of patients likely eligible, including those whose pack-year history is missing. Start with a CSV export refreshed every 1, 3 or 6 months, or connect through FHIR or HL7.

LungNAV Reach

An AI patient navigator that texts and calls patients in 70+ languages, answers questions about the scan, and hands each patient to your scheduling team or nurse navigators with a call summary.

LungAI Second opinion

Gives radiologists a malignancy risk score for each nodule, factoring in change since the prior scan, inside the PACS and CADe software they already use. The radiologist makes the final call.

LungAI is an investigational medical device and has not been cleared by FDA. It is not commercially available in the United States.

How we estimate the gap

Modeled estimates from public data. They are not a count of Appalachian Regional Healthcare patients and contain no patient information.

  • Service area: CMS Hospital Service Area File 2025 (counties within 120 miles of a system hospital holding 80% of its Medicare inpatients, plus any county with at least 1%); hospitals from the AHRQ Compendium of U.S. Health Systems, 2023.
  • Eligible adults, low estimate: Oatmeal Health Missing Millions (Census 2025 population, CDC PLACES smoking, USPSTF 2021).
  • Eligible adults, high estimate: University of Minnesota National Lung Cancer Screening Estimates (Haynes 2026), which also counts former smokers.
  • Screening rate: American Lung Association, State of Lung Cancer 2025.
  • Lung cancer cases and deaths: NCI and CDC State Cancer Profiles (incidence 2019 to 2023, deaths 2020 to 2024).
  • Screening volume: CMS Medicare Physician and Other Practitioners, 2024; CMS Medicare Advantage State/County Penetration, September 2026.

LungAI is an investigational medical device and has not been cleared by FDA. Oatmeal Health is preparing a 510(k) premarket notification. LungAI is not commercially available in the United States.

See Appalachian Regional Healthcare's own numbers

In a 30 minute review we replace these public estimates with counts from your own records and agree on what a first program would look like.