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

The Childrens Mercy Hospital

Lung screening gap across 10 counties in Kansas and Missouri

72,000to140,000adults in its service area qualify for lung cancer screening and are not being screened

About 1,500 people here are diagnosed with lung cancer each year, and 62% are found at a late stage, when it is hardest to treat.

Explore the screening network
MONEOKKS
10 counties2 acute care hospitalsService area
90,000 to 170,000adults likely qualify under USPSTF 2021 criteria (estimate)
860lung cancer deaths a year in these counties, 2020 to 2024
20.3%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 The Childrens Mercy Hospital'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+140+200+250+300+370+450+

Acute care hospital in this system

Counties in the service area

CountyStateAdults likely eligibleLung cancer deaths per 100kMedicare screens billed locally, 2024
Jackson CountyMissouri34,900 to 63,30036.51,589
Johnson CountyKansas19,500 to 47,10023.21,220
Clay CountyMissouri11,500 to 21,40037.2512
Shawnee CountyKansas9,100 to 15,60033.8844
Wyandotte CountyKansas8,100 to 12,90049.4334
Crawford CountyKansas1,800 to 2,90050.738
Lyon CountyKansas1,400 to 2,70031.7None billed locally
Franklin CountyKansas1,500 to 2,20045.2None billed locally
Geary CountyKansas1,000 to 1,50062.7None billed locally
Neosho CountyKansas880 to 1,40040.5None billed locally

4 of the 10 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 20.3% to 25.3%, five points above today, about 4,500 to 8,600 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 62% 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

1,500new lung cancers
900found at a late stage
860lung cancer deaths

NCI and CDC State Cancer Profiles, annual averages.

Screening at The Childrens Mercy Hospital today

Public Medicare claims do not attribute lung screening reads to The Childrens Mercy Hospital locations. Radiologists who read for a health system often bill through a separate radiology group, so The Childrens Mercy Hospital's screening volume is best measured from its own records.

Most adults who qualify see a primary care clinician every year. We count 623 primary care clinicians, 0 pulmonologists and 3 thoracic surgeons practicing at The Childrens Mercy Hospital 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 The Childrens Mercy Hospital 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 (47%, CMS) and, at the high end, by the share of eligible adults under 65 (66%).

2 acute care hospitals

  • Childrens Mercy HospitalKansas City, MO
  • Childrens Mercy Hospital KansasOverland Park, KS

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 The Childrens Mercy Hospital 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 The Childrens Mercy Hospital'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.