New $100K skilled-worker H-1B visa fee could mean fewer Indian doctors to treat rural residents - Entrepreneur Generations

One in five immigrant doctors in the U.S. is of 
Indian origin. (Photo via BBC News)

The Trump administration's new $100,000 skilled-worker H-1B visa fee could leave fewer Indian doctors to treat rural populations. "One in four doctors providing care in the U.S. are foreign-trained, and recent data shows that most of them practice in the vast, underserved rural areas where American graduates are reluctant to work," reports Savita Patel of BBC News.

For the roughly 50,000 India-trained physicians currently working in the U.S., the new visa fee does not apply; however, there are worries around "whether the steady supply of Indian medical professionals to the U.S. would continue in the future," Patel explains. "According to research, one in five immigrant doctors in the U.S. is of Indian origin."

And while the administration may eventually decide to exempt medically trained workers from the new fee, currently, "there is no indication that any category of workers, including those in the medical field, has been exempted," Patel reports.

The American Medical Association asked the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristin Noem, to reconsider the new fee, "emphasizing that the fee hike could discourage hospitals from hiring H-1B doctors, affecting future supply pipelines and limiting patients' access to care in communities that need it the most," Patel adds.

Supporters of the fee hike insist it will keep "American jobs for Americans," Patel adds. But research on which jobs foreign medical workers take shows they are filling positions that American doctors don't want -- in regions that are "remote and low-income."

Given the financial straits many rural hospitals are already in, "any hike in the fee would make it harder to bring in new clinicians from abroad," Patel writes. Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the AMA, told Patel, "We have heard from health systems who say this fee would be devastating."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/a37IOZk New $100K skilled-worker H-1B visa fee could mean fewer Indian doctors to treat rural residents - Entrepreneur Generations

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