Funding Opportunity Number: HRSA-25-075
Eligibility information
Program requirements
Program definitions
Completing my application
Eligibility information
Can a residency that is sponsored by a health center apply?
Yes. You are eligible to apply.
If a community-based residency is accredited through an academic center and does not sponsor its own residency, are we eligible to apply for this opportunity?
No. Affiliated sites of a Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) accredited residency are not eligible to apply for this opportunity.
We have recently applied for CODA accreditation and anticipate approval by the time the grant starts. Are we eligible to apply if we don't have accreditation yet?
After CODA accepts your application, you will receive a formal acknowledgment indicating that you are initially accredited by CODA, and thereby eligible to apply for this funding opportunity. This document should be included in Attachment 1.
Note: It can take up to two weeks to get your CODA acknowledgment.
Will you accept only one application per entity? We have a unique setup where my Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) is part of a large, university health system. None of our sites are located within the college and we are up to 80 miles away, but we do share a Tax ID.
On page 9 of the funding opportunity, it states that more than one application may be submitted from the same organization if there are separate unique entity IDs (UEIs). UEIs are issued by SAM.gov and are not the same as employer identification numbers (EIN) numbers, the federal tax IDs issued by the Internal Revenue Service.
If we develop a fellowship training program in the care of patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities and geriatrics, would it be exempt from the CODA accreditation requirement since there is no CODA accreditation process for fellowships in geriatric, pediatric, or general dentistry? Alternatively, could we meet the accreditation requirement by developing a fellowship within our accredited Advanced Education in General Dentistry (AEGD) program that focuses on the care of patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities and geriatric patients?
If your program is not accredited by CODA or a recognized body such as the Secretary of Education, the program is not eligible to apply. However, a CODA-approved AEGD, General Practice Residency (GPR), Pediatric or Dental Public Health (DPH) residency could apply and support the planning and development of a fellowship focusing on patients with intellectual or developmental disability (IDD) and geriatric patients.
Note: Trainees would be required to start in this fellowship by July 1, 2026.
Are CODA approved residency programs in U.S.-affiliated Pacific islands eligible?
Yes. CODA-approved residency programs in general and pediatric dentistry or dental public health are eligible to apply.
We are a Federally Qualified Health Center with multidisciplinary services with in-house medical, dental, and behavioral health services. We have a history of collaborations between those departments. If we propose an interdepartmental collaboration between our medical and dental departments, do our “departments” fit what is envisioned for Priority 1?
Yes. That collaboration would qualify for Priority 1.
We want to train community dentists to better meet the needs of their community. Can we apply for this award?
Training community dentists is allowable. However, the applicant entity needs to be a CODA-approved general, pediatric, or dental public health residency or fellowship that is accredited by a recognized body approved for such a purpose by the Secretary of Education.
Is an expansion of existing GPR residents to work in an academically owned health center in a rural location eligible to apply?
Yes. You are eligible to apply to support this expansion. Be sure to only include the expanded slots in your training chart.
Program requirements
We’re a residency program accredited through an academic center where residents train at a hospital caring for patients in the outpatient department and the ambulatory surgical center. Does this comply with your eight-week community-based training requirement?
No. Rotations at hospital outpatient departments or ambulatory surgical centers do not qualify as community-based ambulatory patient care centers.
Our academic institution has CODA accredited programs in general dentistry, pediatric dentistry and dental public health and a geriatric fellowship. Can the application include all our training programs? Do all the programs need to include eight weeks of community-based rotations?
We encourage interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaborations. However, applications can have only one primary residency. The primary residency must include one eight-week or two four-week rotations at a community-based organization (CBO) within an academic year.
Note: If your primary residency is multiple years, the one eight-week or two four-week rotations are required for each year.
What is the maximum award amount per budget year (pending future appropriations)?
The maximum budget allowed is $450,000 per budget year for the five-year award.
Would community clinics where dental students and residents go on rotations meet the requirement for community-based organization? Or must the community-based site be a formal program (such as a GPR or other residency) housed primarily at a CBO?
A community clinic that is training dental students and/or residents would qualify as the CBO operating a primary care dentistry training program. Applications must indicate that community partners are committed to this partnership, describing what they are obligating to and any in-kind contributions.
Do trainee experiences need to be based at a single CBO (e.g., one community health center (CHC)), or is it acceptable to have rotations at multiple different CBOs?
The experiences can be at multiple CBOs.
Do all trainees in a residency program need to participate in the CBO rotations, or is it acceptable to have a rural/CBO track that only some trainees participate in?
All primary trainees need to participate in the eight weeks of CBO rotations.
For a two-year program, what is the minimum total number of hours that each trainee must rotate to the CBO each year?
Each primary trainee must have at least eight weeks of longitudinal community-based training each year of their training, in either one eight-week or two four-week periods. The rotations must be at least 20 hours per week per trainee. That would be 160 hours per year for each of your residents.
The funding opportunity states that the program must include eight weeks of community-based training. Are these eight weeks per year per trainee?
Yes. Each primary trainee must have eight weeks of longitudinal community-based training annually; either one eight-week or two four-week periods. The rotations must be at least 20 hours per week per trainee.
How do you receive funding priority?
You must include a statement that you are eligible for a funding priority and provide documents that prove you qualify for the priority in Attachment 6.
We have many CBO sites that dental students and other program’s residents currently rotate to. Our residents have not rotated there, but we could develop four- and eight-week rotations to those clinics. Could those sites be used for the required CBO experiences?
Yes. It sounds like you may need a planning year to get permission from CODA to make the changes. That’s certainly allowed.
What is the rotation requirement for part-time programs?
The rotation requirement is to be spread across the time of the training program. So, for example, a one-year residency that is part time, means the resident would have two years to complete the eight-week rotation requirement. However, the 20-hour/week requirement remains.
Dental Public Health training does not necessarily include clinical training. How would they comply with the clinical requirement?
DPH residents that are primary trainees are required to rotate at CBOs either for one eight-week period or for two four-week periods. They are not expected to provide clinical dentistry. However, they are expected to support the oral health of the CBO’s population.
Most of our DPH residents do their rotations through public health departments. Would a rotation to a local oral health program that’s part of the public department be allowable for Dental Public Health residents?
Yes.
Program definitions
How does HRSA define “community-based organizations”?
A community-based, ambulatory patient care center that operates a primary care dentistry training program. These include, but are not exclusively, federally qualified health centers, rural health clinics, and health centers operated by the Indian Health Service, by tribes or tribal organizations, or by urban Indian organizations.
Where do I find definitions that are not in the funding opportunity?
Refer to the BHW Glossary.
Completing my application
On page 22, under the need section, it asks for demographic data. Should this describe the targeted community or the trainees? Since we don’t know who the trainees will be, we can’t describe their demographics.
Please use this opportunity to describe the demographics of your targeted community and how your training program will address the gaps in the oral health workforce to meet the community’s needs.
Are we able to include images of the first and last pages of a multipage document since attachments count towards the page limit?
Reviewers will only have access to the materials you submit with your application. You decide what to include in your application. It is not required to include the entire contents of lengthy agreements, so long as the included document provides the information that relates to the requirements of the NOFO. For example, you may include the first and last page of accreditation documents. Include pages from memorandums of understanding (MOUs), letters of agreements (LOAs) and contracts that describe the working relationships, roles, deliverables, and have dated signatures.
The Standardized Work Plan Form instructions indicate to use the funding opportunity goals and objective verbatim. Should we use this approach for the proposal as well? In other words, would you like us to use the funding opportunity goals and objectives as our own, and only describe/personalize our individual activities beneath each?
You must use the goals and objectives verbatim. Use your judgment to place the activities listed under those objectives where they best fit.