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FUHN Prioritizes Increasing Access to Oral Health Care through Dental Service Line
Clinical members from across FUHN clinics are collaborating to strengthen the brand promise to patients and payers through service lines in maternal health, dental, and age-friendly care. The aim is to implement standard clinical and business practices to boost efficiency and improve care by increasing access.
Dental problems are common and costly, and access to oral health care is challenging for families with Medicaid coverage. Even at a record high, only 40% of Minnesotans covered by Medicaid saw a dentist in 2024, well short of the state’s own goal of 55%, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Dental Utilization Report (March 2026). The report names staffing shortages, dentists not accepting Medicaid or new patients, few rural dentists, and low patient awareness of benefits as barriers to accessing dental care.
Leveraging expertise and experience
FUHN is well positioned to help improve the current situation. Each FUHN service line has an administrative and clinical dyad leader. For dental, the administrative leader is Community Health Service, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Rhonda Eastlund, and the clinical leader is Southside Community Health Services Director of Oral Health Janelle Jehn, ADT. Both bring tremendous experience and expertise to the initiative, which is a statewide effort through FUHN’s partnership with the Minnesota Association of Community Health Centers (MNACHC).
Previously, Rhonda was director of operations at CHAS Health, a large Spokane, Washington health center with a significant dental footprint, providing general dentistry at six co-located medical service sites and four standalone dental locations. There, she was part of the team that built out new dental clinics and stood up a residency program with a local hospital, expanding access to oral health care across eastern Washington. She’s leveraging this experience at CHSI, as the rural community health system launches a brand-new dental program in Rochester.
Janelle was among the first students to pursue dental therapy after the University of Minnesota instituted the program in 2009, and she was the first dental therapist to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry’s White Coat Ceremony. She is also the first dental therapist selected for the National Network for Oral Health Access’s year-long leadership institute for health center dental directors. Today, she is expanding access to dental care in Southside’s brand-new facility on East Lake Street, where patients can receive medical, dental, and behavioral health care in one location.
In Minnesota, dental therapists work much as nurse practitioners do in medicine: they provide preventive and restorative care, such as fillings and simple extractions, under a dentist’s supervision. Today’s training programs prepare students as both dental hygienists and dental therapists, though some dental therapists, including Janelle, are licensed in dental therapy only. Dental therapists are especially valuable as clinics face a statewide hygienist shortage.
“Minnesota has a severe shortage of hygienists, and it’s affecting all of our clinics,” Rhonda said. “Our dentists are stepping in to do hygiene work so we can get patients in the chair for the next level of treatment.”
Given that Rhonda and Janelle have critical roles at their respective health centers, FUHN is contracting with Kimberly Freeman, RDH, MPH, to help guide the dental service line development. A national consultant with experience working with community health centers, Kim is assessing the dental needs of FUHN and Minnesota FQHCs and leading a Learning Network, a collaborative space for clinic leaders to connect with peers and navigate the FQHC dental landscape together.
Kim brings a practitioner’s perspective to the work. “I’m a clinician who still works in an FQHC every day, so I can relate to teams as boots on the ground,” she said. “That keeps me from suggesting things that would be near-impossible to implement.”
She also draws on her work with health centers in other states to find ideas Minnesota clinics can replicate. “Our whole goal is to reduce barriers to care for patients,” she said. “I’m passionate about finding solutions that work for everybody, patient and provider.”
Rhonda points to Kim’s commitment to team-based, collaborative leadership, in which anyone in a leadership role, whatever their title, gets the chance to learn and grow. “Dental care has been dentist-directed, and that’s really changing in FQHC dental programs,” Rhonda said.
Learning from the recent dental needs assessment
This summer, FUHN invited 12 health centers to complete an in-depth dental self-assessment, and 10 responded. Kim has since worked closely with six of them. The assessment looked at the dental workforce, how dental teams work with their medical colleagues, data, and finances. One common thread: dental leaders are often expected to grow their programs without ready access to their own budget and financial data, so helping them have informed conversations with their finance teams is an early focus.
Clinics have embraced the process. “They loved the self-assessment,” Rhonda said. “It gave them a space to identify what they’re doing and start to benchmark themselves.
They’re all leaning in.”
The work reaches beyond FUHN’s own members. “We’re working with all of the FQHC dental clinics in Minnesota to stand up a comprehensive oral health network,” Rhonda said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re a FUHN clinic or not. This work is vital because of the unmet need for dental services for people on Medical Assistance across the state.”
Partners outside FUHN are already engaged. Lake Superior Community Health Center and Scenic Rivers Health Services, members of Breakwater Health Network, another Minnesota network of community health centers, are partnering on the dental service line. Lake Superior serves the Duluth area with three dental locations in the Twin Ports, and Scenic Rivers serves remote rural communities across northern Minnesota. Together with FUHN members in the Twin Cities, Mankato, Moorhead, Willmar, and Rochester, the effort now touches every corner of the state.
Next, Kim will convene regular peer learning sessions, in which health centers with strong programs share what works and Kim brings national benchmarks and best practices. “The goal is shared learning from each other, not just from me,” she said.
A year from now, success means an established dental network that meets monthly, shares best practices, and can even share staff when a clinic is in need.
“We’re a network for a reason,” Rhonda said. “We need to support each other and act at the network level, instead of each clinic being in it for itself.”
Why dental care matters
Taking better care of patients’ oral health is increasingly linked to better physical health. Treating gum disease lowers blood sugar by an amount that matters clinically (Cochrane, 2022). Additionally, gum disease treatment is linked to lower blood pressure and improved heart disease. Plus, in a 25-year study of 6,000+ adults, self-reported weekly flossers had 22% lower risk of ischemic stroke and 12% lower risk of atrial fibrillation (American Stroke Association conference, 2025).
Untreated oral disease has negative impacts that affect the following:
Pain and daily life. Oral disease causes pain and infection that can make it hard to eat, speak, and learn, and can affect school performance and job prospects. (CDC)
Kids in school. About 34 million school hours are lost each year to unplanned dental care. (CDC)
Emergency rooms. Tooth problems drove about 1.9 million ER visits a year in 2020–2022, care an ER cannot fix. (CDC, 2025)
The economy. Untreated dental disease costs the U.S. more than $45 billion a year in lost productivity. (CDC)
The research also shows that children ages 6–9 from lower-income homes are more than twice as likely to have untreated cavities as children from higher-income homes (25% vs. 10%) (CDC). Plus, according to an MDH analysis featured in a column published by the Duluth News Tribune, approximately 73.9% of all Minnesota adults had a past-year dental visit, compared to just 29.1% of adults enrolled in Medicaid. These two figures resonate with community health centers and their missions.
Health centers that offer both medical and dental care can contribute to a whole-body approach to treating patients, while helping to increase access for all patients. Today, 10 of the 12 FUHN member clinics offer medical and dental care, and as the dental service line develops, the clinics can increasingly support each other with access and referrals.
Which FUHN members offer dental
Ten of the twelve FUHN member clinics run their own dental programs. Breakwater Health Network partners offering dental are listed at the end.
Clinic | Dental on site | Dental locations | Highlights |
Yes | Moorhead, Willmar, Rochester; Grafton, ND | Mobile dental unit reaches outlying sites | |
Yes | Minneapolis | Dental students and residents train here | |
Yes | Minneapolis | Full-service dental for adults and children | |
Yes | St. Paul | Recently added a dentist focused on children | |
Yes | Minneapolis | New clinic grows dental from 5 to 12 chairs | |
Yes | St. Paul | Full-service dental for adults and children | |
Yes | Mankato; Jordan | Only safety-net medical-plus-dental provider in south-central and southwestern Minnesota; dental therapy students from Minnesota State University, Mankato train here | |
Yes | Minneapolis | First health center in the nation to hire a dental therapist | |
Yes | St. Paul | Sliding-fee dental; hosts Metro State University dental therapy students | |
Yes | Minneapolis | Dental program led by an advanced dental therapist; opened a new clinic with dental, behavioral health, and medical in one clinic | |
No | — | Refers and coordinates dental through community partners | |
No | — | Refers and coordinates dental through community partners | |
Lake Superior Community Health Center (Breakwater Health Network) | Yes | Duluth area, including Carlton | Three dental locations in the Twin Ports area |
Scenic Rivers Health Services (Breakwater Health Network) | Yes | Bigfork, Cook, Floodwood, and Tower | Serves remote rural communities across northern Minnesota |
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