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

Kaiser Permanente

Lung screening gap across 23 counties in California, Hawaii and Oregon

990,000to1.9Madults in its service area qualify for lung cancer screening and are not being screened

About 15,200 people here are diagnosed with lung cancer each year, and 65% are found at a late stage, when it is hardest to treat.

Explore the screening network
CANVAZ
23 counties40 acute care hospitalsService areaShowing the California region; all regions are mapped below.
1.2M to 2.3Madults likely qualify under USPSTF 2021 criteria (estimate)
9,100lung cancer deaths a year in these counties, 2020 to 2024
16.4%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 Kaiser Permanente'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.

California: Los Angeles area

California: Santa Clara area

Oregon

Hawaii

Adults likely eligible, per county

0+29,400+35,900+48,800+58,900+97,200+152,700+

Acute care hospital in this system

Counties in the service area

CountyStateAdults likely eligibleLung cancer deaths per 100kMedicare screens billed locally, 2024
Los Angeles CountyCalifornia341,600 to 644,90019.75,864
San Diego CountyCalifornia99,700 to 208,80021.62,544
Orange CountyCalifornia96,000 to 202,70020.21,029
Riverside CountyCalifornia89,200 to 152,70023.8181
San Bernardino CountyCalifornia77,900 to 132,20024.3219
Santa Clara CountyCalifornia46,700 to 110,40017.01,718
Alameda CountyCalifornia47,000 to 97,20019.6333
Sacramento CountyCalifornia57,300 to 92,20024.91,363
Contra Costa CountyCalifornia36,300 to 75,20020.8941
Multnomah CountyOregon28,400 to 58,90027.01,119
Fresno CountyCalifornia35,900 to 58,80023.7166
Honolulu CountyHawaii32,100 to 54,30022.0431
San Francisco CountyCalifornia22,900 to 49,90021.6452
San Mateo CountyCalifornia19,700 to 48,80017.4623
San Joaquin CountyCalifornia29,100 to 44,30024.652
Washington CountyOregon17,700 to 43,10022.1227
Sonoma CountyCalifornia19,100 to 35,90022.4543
Clackamas CountyOregon15,700 to 35,40024.326
Stanislaus CountyCalifornia21,200 to 33,80026.3358
Solano CountyCalifornia17,000 to 29,40026.355
Placer CountyCalifornia14,300 to 27,60022.223
Marin CountyCalifornia8,400 to 20,30015.626
Maui CountyHawaii7,900 to 11,50022.698

Every county in the service area had Medicare lung screening reads billed locally in 2024. County names link to their Missing Millions page.

What closing the gap would mean

If screening in these counties rose from 16.4% to the national rate of 18.2%, about 20,700 to 39,700 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 65% 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

15,200new lung cancers
9,800found at a late stage
9,100lung cancer deaths

NCI and CDC State Cancer Profiles, annual averages.

Screening at Kaiser Permanente today

Clinicians at Kaiser Permanente locations billed 576 low-dose CT lung screening reads to Medicare fee-for-service in 2024. Including Medicare Advantage and other insurers, we estimate about 1,300 to 3,900 screenings a year.

Most adults who qualify see a primary care clinician every year. We count 10,079 primary care clinicians, 148 pulmonologists and 55 thoracic surgeons practicing at Kaiser Permanente 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 Kaiser Permanente 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 (57%, CMS) and, at the high end, by the share of eligible adults under 65 (65%).

40 acute care hospitals

  • Kfh - FontanaFontana, CA
  • Kfh - San DiegoSan Diego, CA
  • Kfh - Oc-AnaheimAnaheim, CA
  • Kfh - Los AngelesLos Angeles, CA
  • Kfh - DowneyDowney, CA
  • Kfh - RosevilleRoseville, CA
  • Kfh - OaklandOakland, CA
  • Kfh - Santa ClaraSanta Clara, CA
  • Kaiser Sunnyside Medical CenterClackamas, OR
  • Kfh - SacramentoSacramento, CA
  • Kfh-HawaiiHonolulu, HI
  • Kfh - Woodland HillsWoodland Hills, CA

And 28 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 Kaiser Permanente 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 Kaiser Permanente'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.

Request a private screening review