Introduction
Cleerly is a cardiology AI company founded in 2017 in Denver by James Min, MD. It analyzes coronary CT angiography scans to quantify and characterize atherosclerotic plaque — moving beyond traditional stenosis grading to assess plaque volume, composition, and overall plaque burden as predictors of heart attack risk. Cleerly’s clinical thesis is that many heart attacks occur in arteries that appear only mildly narrowed on conventional grading scales, and that detailed plaque phenotyping from AI-enhanced CT analysis can identify at-risk patients earlier.
Two reimbursement milestones make Cleerly particularly relevant for readers tracking commercial adoption: Cleerly announced a CPT Category I code for its plaque analyses in October 2024, and Aetna coverage approval in January 2026. Those are concrete payer and coding events, not marketing claims.
Reimbursement milestones matter because coronary CT AI vendors can demonstrate strong technical performance yet stall commercially if hospitals cannot bill for the analysis or if major payers decline coverage.
James Min’s role as a physician-founder anchors Cleerly’s product narrative in cardiology clinical practice rather than in generic imaging IT.
What the company does
Cleerly processes coronary CT angiography datasets through AI algorithms that segment coronary arteries, identify plaque, and quantify total plaque volume and high-risk plaque features. Results are delivered to cardiologists through a structured report intended to support shared decision-making about preventive therapy, lifestyle intervention, and further testing. The product assumes the patient already receives or is eligible for coronary CT angiography — Cleerly adds an analysis layer rather than replacing the underlying imaging acquisition.
Who it serves
Cleerly serves cardiology practices, hospital imaging departments, and preventive cardiovascular programs that offer coronary CT angiography to patients at risk for coronary artery disease. Aetna’s January 2026 coverage approval expands the addressable insured population among Aetna members, though coverage across all payers remains uneven in any new cardiovascular diagnostic category. Cleerly’s customers are typically physicians and imaging centers that can operationalize CT angiography workflows and bill appropriately using the CPT Category I code announced in October 2024.
James Min’s physician-founder background shapes Cleerly’s clinical messaging toward cardiologists who order coronary CT rather than toward pure radiology IT buyers alone.
Company background
James Min, MD, founded Cleerly in 2017 in Denver, drawing on academic cardiology imaging research that emphasized plaque burden over stenosis percentage alone. The company raised venture funding and built validation evidence through clinical studies intended to support both physician adoption and payer coverage — a dual track common in cardiovascular AI but slower than pure software categories because each payer decision requires independent review. Cleerly’s press releases document coding and coverage milestones explicitly, giving Brel verifiable anchors for its commercial timeline.
Denver’s growing health-tech cluster provided Cleerly with operational distance from coastal venture markets while maintaining access to national cardiology opinion leaders who influence coronary CT adoption guidelines and payer medical policy.
Product and AI capabilities
Cleerly’s AI pipeline performs vessel segmentation, plaque detection, and quantification across the coronary tree from standard CT angiography datasets. The models must generalize across scanner vendors, contrast protocols, and heart rates — practical variability that research prototypes often understate. Cleerly positions its outputs as personalized heart attack risk insights based on plaque phenotyping rather than population-average risk scores alone. The October 2024 CPT Category I code provides a standardized billing pathway in the U.S. market, while the January 2026 Aetna approval represents a major commercial payer’s formal coverage decision.
Key developments
2017: Cleerly founded in Denver by James Min, MD. October 2024: Cleerly announced CPT Category I code for plaque analyses (official press page). January 2026: Cleerly announced Aetna coverage approval (official press page).
The sequence — coding milestone first, major payer coverage second — mirrors how many cardiovascular diagnostics advance commercially in the United States, where a CPT code alone does not guarantee payer policy alignment.
Both milestones are documented on Cleerly’s official press pages cited in this profile.
Why it matters
Cleerly matters because cardiovascular AI lives or dies on reimbursement, and Cleerly has documented two of the hardest milestones — a Category I CPT code and a major payer coverage decision — with official press releases Brel can cite directly. That distinguishes Cleerly from vendors still stuck in research-use or cash-pay positioning. Cleerly also complements HeartFlow in the coronary CT ecosystem: HeartFlow emphasizes flow physiology; Cleerly emphasizes plaque structure and burden, addressing related but not identical clinical questions from the same imaging modality.
Aetna’s January 2026 coverage decision does not guarantee identical policies at other national payers, but it establishes a documented precedent Cleerly can cite in subsequent coverage negotiations.
Sector context
Cleerly sits in Brel’s AI in healthcare coverage under cardiology, alongside HeartFlow and monitoring-focused Eko Health. Readers evaluating coronary CT pathways should compare Cleerly’s plaque-first framing with HeartFlow’s FFRct physiology framing — hospitals may adopt one, both, or neither depending on clinical program design and payer contracts.
Sources and references
Cleerly official press releases on CPT Category I code (October 2024) and Aetna coverage (January 2026).
- Cleerly — CPT Category I code (cleerlyhealth.com, October 2024)
- Cleerly — Aetna coverage approval (cleerlyhealth.com, January 2026)
Reviewed July 10, 2026. James Min, MD, is founder.