Missing Millions · 2026 estimate
Lincoln County, Colorado is missing 240 lung cancer screenings.
About 1 in 7 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 Lincoln 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 fewer than 50 more people screened each year.
Illustrative estimate based on the county's estimated eligible population.
Who is missing
Age
54% are ages 50 to 64
Of adults ages 50 to 80 here, 54% are 50 to 64 and 46% are 65 to 80. Younger adults are often still working and outside Medicare.
Language
6% limited English
6% of adults here speak English less than very well, most often Spanish.
Screening today
0 Medicare scans
No low-dose CT screening scans were billed to Medicare fee-for-service by providers based in Lincoln County in 2024, so residents likely travel elsewhere to be screened. 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 Colorado counties
- El Paso County20,200 missing
- Arapahoe County18,000 missing
- Jefferson County16,900 missing
- Adams County16,900 missing
- Denver County16,200 missing
- Weld County11,300 missing
- Larimer County10,100 missing
- Douglas County8,900 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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