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

McLeod Health

Lung screening gap across 14 counties in North Carolina and South Carolina

66,000to99,000adults in its service area qualify for lung cancer screening and are not being screened

About 1,300 people here are diagnosed with lung cancer each year, and 66% are found at a late stage, when it is hardest to treat.

Explore the screening network
NCSC
14 counties5 acute care hospitalsService area
82,000 to 120,000adults likely qualify under USPSTF 2021 criteria (estimate)
810lung cancer deaths a year in these counties, 2020 to 2024
18.9%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 McLeod Health'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+200+270+310+360+430+560+

Acute care hospital in this system

Counties in the service area

CountyStateAdults likely eligibleLung cancer deaths per 100kMedicare screens billed locally, 2024
Horry CountySouth Carolina28,300 to 38,90037.31,194
Brunswick CountyNorth Carolina11,200 to 17,80034.3None billed locally
Florence CountySouth Carolina7,000 to 12,30039.778
Robeson CountyNorth Carolina8,400 to 11,40054.436
Sumter CountySouth Carolina5,200 to 8,90043.139
Darlington CountySouth Carolina3,800 to 6,40041.8125
Columbus CountyNorth Carolina3,400 to 5,30048.1None billed locally
Chesterfield CountySouth Carolina2,900 to 4,50052.2None billed locally
Clarendon CountySouth Carolina2,200 to 3,60051.341
Williamsburg CountySouth Carolina2,100 to 3,10033.2None billed locally
Marion CountySouth Carolina2,300 to 3,00046.1None billed locally
Dillon CountySouth Carolina2,000 to 2,70065.865
Marlboro CountySouth Carolina2,000 to 2,50058.1None billed locally
Lee CountySouth Carolina1,200 to 1,70055.3None billed locally

7 of the 14 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 18.9% to 23.9%, five points above today, about 4,100 to 6,100 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 66% 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

1,300new lung cancers
840found at a late stage
810lung cancer deaths

NCI and CDC State Cancer Profiles, annual averages.

Screening at McLeod Health today

Clinicians at McLeod Health locations billed 158 low-dose CT lung screening reads to Medicare fee-for-service in 2024. Including Medicare Advantage and other insurers, we estimate about 330 to 770 screenings a year.

Most adults who qualify see a primary care clinician every year. We count 530 primary care clinicians, 14 pulmonologists and 5 thoracic surgeons practicing at McLeod Health 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 McLeod Health 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 (51%, CMS) and, at the high end, by the share of eligible adults under 65 (58%).

5 acute care hospitals

  • Mcleod Regional Medical CenterFlorence, SC
  • Mcleod Loris Seacoast HospitalLoris, SC
  • Mcleod Medical Center - DillonDillon, SC
  • Mcleod Health ClarendonManning, SC
  • Mcleod Health CherawCheraw, SC

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 McLeod Health 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 McLeod Health'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.