{"id":523923,"date":"2026-03-14T22:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T22:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/523923\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T22:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T22:39:17","slug":"sanford-essentia-working-to-close-north-dakotas-mental-health-provider-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/523923\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanford, Essentia working to close North Dakota\u2019s mental health provider gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – North Dakota is meeting only 23% of its mental health workforce need, according to a report from the national mental health advocacy organization, Inseparable.<\/a> The shortage is leaving thousands of residents seeking care elsewhere due to a lack of providers.<\/p>\n

Sanford waitlist tops 300 patients<\/p>\n

More than 300 people are on Sanford Health\u2019s psychology waitlist, with patients waiting months to get an appointment. Officials at Sanford said the delays come down to staffing.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jon Ulven, a Behavioral Health Specialist at Sanford, <\/a>said the Fargo-Moorhead area is served by roughly 20 psychiatry providers and 20 psychotherapy providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to think about \u2018How do we meet the needs for the Fargo-Moorhead community?\u2019\u201d Ulven said.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem, Ulven said, is a lack of applicants for open positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can recall there was a time we posted a position for a new psychologist and it remained open for two years without getting an applicant,\u201d Ulven said.<\/p>\n

Sanford, Essentia pursue long-term staffing strategies<\/p>\n

To address the pipeline issue, Sanford has adopted what Ulven described as a \u201cgrow our own\u201d approach, including a psychiatry residency program in partnership with the University of North Dakota medical school. The program currently has 26 residents.<\/p>\n

At Essentia Health, Dr. Alexandra Kohlhase, a Clinical Psychologist,<\/a> said the provider shortage is unlikely to be resolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have made several new hires just for this year as our department continues to grow. I would say there\u2019s never a point in time where we\u2019ll probably have enough providers to meet the needs of our patient population,\u201d Kohlhase said.<\/p>\n

Telehealth expands reach to rural patients<\/p>\n

Kohlhase said telehealth has been critical to serving patients across the state, particularly in rural areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do serve a large, rural population. If we didn\u2019t have telehealth, that would probably eliminate half of the patients that we see,\u201d Kohlhase said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether people live outside the Fargo-Moorhead area or there are transportation barriers, telehealth has been a fantastic option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essentia is also working to manage patient volume by transferring stabilized patients back to primary care for medication management, freeing up specialists for higher-need cases, Kohlhase said.<\/p>\n

Ulven said the impact of the shortage extends beyond those with diagnosed conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an important thing for folks to recognize is that even if you\u2019re someone who\u2019s listening to this and thinking, \u2018I don\u2019t have a behavioral health condition\u2019 \u2014 What ends up happening when we don\u2019t do a good job of managing behavioral health is, all health suffers,\u201d Ulven said.<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by calling or texting, 988.<\/p>\n

You can also contact NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) at 800-950-6264. You can also text \u201cNAMI\u201d to 62640.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KVLY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – North Dakota is meeting only 23% of its mental health workforce need,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-523923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}