Missing Millions · 2026 estimate
San Francisco County, California is missing 19,100 lung cancer screenings.
About 1 in 14 adults ages 50 to 80 here qualifies for lung cancer screening and hasn't been screened. Low-dose CT finds lung cancer early, when it is most treatable.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates 2025; CDC PLACES 2025; USPSTF 2021; American Lung Association, State of Lung Cancer 2025. Modeled estimates; see methodology below.
How San Francisco County compares
Adults ages 50 to 80 who qualify for screening and haven't been screened.
Modeled estimates; national figures from American Lung Association, State of Lung Cancer 2025.
Closing the gap
Raising screening here to the national rate of 18.2% would mean about 320 more people screened each year.
Illustrative estimate based on the county's estimated eligible population.
Who is missing
Age
55% are ages 50 to 64
Of adults ages 50 to 80 here, 55% are 50 to 64 and 45% are 65 to 80. Younger adults are often still working and outside Medicare.
Language
20% limited English
20% of adults here speak English less than very well, most often an Asian or Pacific Island language.
Screening today
452 Medicare scans
Providers based in San Francisco County billed 452 low-dose CT screening scans to Medicare fee-for-service in 2024, across 15 billing providers. See the local network in the Explorer
Sources: age, U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates 2025; language, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 (table B16004), adults 18 and older; screening, CMS Medicare Physician and Other Practitioners 2024 (CPT 71271), by billing provider location.
Other California counties
- Los Angeles County284,200 missing
- San Diego County82,900 missing
- Orange County79,900 missing
- Riverside County74,200 missing
- San Bernardino County64,800 missing
- Sacramento County47,700 missing
- Alameda County39,100 missing
- Santa Clara County38,900 missing
Methodology
How we estimate the gap
A modeled estimate from public data only. It is not a count of patients and contains no patient information.
missing = adults 50 to 80 × county smoking rate × national eligibility factor × (1 − state screening rate)
- Adults 50 to 80: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates, Vintage 2025
- Smoking: CDC PLACES 2025 release (Kentucky and Pennsylvania: 2024 release)
- Eligibility: USPSTF 2021 criteria, scaled to about 14.5 million eligible adults nationally
- Screening rates: American Lung Association, State of Lung Cancer 2025
- Who is missing: Census population estimates (age) and American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 (language)
- Screening activity: CMS Medicare fee-for-service claims for low-dose CT (CPT 71271), 2024, by provider location
Estimates under 50 are shown as "fewer than 50"; others are rounded. Full methodology
Many of them are already your patients.
Oatmeal Health helps health systems and community health centers find, navigate, and screen the people who qualify, alongside the care teams you already have.
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A printable PDF with the local estimate, how it compares, who is missing, the local screening network, and our full methodology.
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