Leading the future of oral health

CareQuest Institute for Oral Health is a nonprofit focused on creating an equitable system for oral health care through research, policy, advocacy and philanthropy. In September, they announced a new CEO: Wade Rakes, MBA. Months into his new role, Rakes sat down with Dental Bite to talk about his experience as a health care executive and how he continues to guide CareQuest forward on its mission. 

—Interview by Carrie Pallardy, edited by Bianca Prieto

Can you share some background on your career? How have your previous roles prepared you to lead CareQuest Institute as its new CEO?

I've been focused on health for the past almost 20 years as a senior advisor serving Ohio Governor Ted Strickland. And then from 2010, until joining CareQuest, at Centene, where I had a number of positions, including leading one of our health plans and ultimately serving as chief growth officer. I've been focused on both the public sector and the private sector on solutions for improving health in communities across the country. I'm excited to continue doing that work here at CareQuest.

How do you view the challenges and opportunities in oral health today?

When you see the crisis that we have in oral health, over 70 million folks without access to a dental insurance plan, unfortunately, that may increase as we go into 2026. When you look at $4 billion of emergency department dental expenses, over 1.5 million folks are getting emergency dental care in hospitals around the country. You continue to see the opportunity for education around prevention.

What attracted me to CareQuest is that we have the ability to improve and impact the lives of millions of people. We are uniquely positioned when you see our organization and the areas in which we have focused to have meaningful, measurable and sustained impact across the country in partnership with clinicians that are doing the work day in and day out with patients. 

When we talk about the need for new solutions to reduce the number of emergency department visits, that really plays into the work that we're building around medical-dental integration.

Oral health has an outsized impact on other health conditions. And it is our opportunity through data, through research and through engagement of the broader oral health community to ensure that that's elevated.

What are some of your near-term and long-term goals for CareQuest as you tackle those challenges and opportunities?  

We have been working in partnership at the state level to track, monitor and report on changes in coverage. Certainly, we expect out of federal legislation that there could be an impact on folks in the states when it comes to their coverage, particularly through Medicaid. That's an area we'll continue to track, and we'll continue to operate in a number of states relative to working hand in hand as those changes come forth in 2026.  

We have really worked very closely on the issue of fluoride and fluoridization and how that decision is made, and partnered with stakeholders really across the spectrum to show that fluoridated water is one of the most simple and most effective ways to prevent tooth decay.

We recently had success in Louisiana, but [we need] to provide continued education about those benefits and why it's critically important to ensure that people are getting data-based information at the state level on issues like fluoride. 

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Dental Bite is curated and written by Carrie Pallardy and edited by Lesley McKenzie.