{"id":11269,"date":"2026-05-01T15:02:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T09:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/delays-in-visa-program-threaten-placement-of-hundreds-of-doctors-in-underserved-areas\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T15:02:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T09:32:39","slug":"delays-in-visa-program-threaten-placement-of-hundreds-of-doctors-in-underserved-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/delays-in-visa-program-threaten-placement-of-hundreds-of-doctors-in-underserved-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Delays in Visa Program Threaten Placement of Hundreds of Doctors in Underserved Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Hundreds of foreign doctors about to complete training in the U.S. will have to leave the country if the federal government doesn\u2019t rapidly process their visa waiver applications, which have been languishing since the fall and winter, immigration attorneys say.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-sidebar alignright \">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-source-sans-3-font-family has-heading-5-font-size\"><strong>Use Our Content\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left has-source-sans-3-font-family\">\u00a0It can be <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/syndication\/\">republished for free<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The waiver program, run by the Department of Health and Human Services, allows physicians who aren\u2019t U.S. citizens to stay in the country while transitioning from the visa they used during their training to temporary worker status. In exchange, the doctors agree to work in underserved areas for at least three years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will be the patients that suffer the most because in about three months, there\u2019s going to be hundreds of places that are not going to have a physician that should have,\u201d said a psychiatrist caught in the delay.<\/p>\n<p>The doctor \u2014 whom KFF Health News agreed not to identify because they fear government reprisal \u2014 was among hundreds who applied this year for a J-1 visa waiver through the HHS Exchange Visitor Program.<\/p>\n<p>If they receive one, the psychiatrist \u2014 who attended medical school in their home country in Europe before coming to the U.S. for their residency and fellowship \u2014 would work with vulnerable and disadvantaged patients in New York.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, the HHS program reviewed waiver applications in one to three weeks, according to two immigration attorneys.<\/p>\n<p>But it currently has a backlog of hundreds of applications, which still need to be reviewed by the State Department and approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to four attorneys interviewed by KFF Health News.<\/p>\n<p>They said the foreign physicians will likely have to return to their home countries if their applications don\u2019t advance to USCIS by July 30.<\/p>\n<p>For them to reenter the U.S., their employers would have to pay a new $100,000 fee associated with the H-1B work visa. It\u2019s a cost that many hospitals and clinics in rural and underserved areas say they can\u2019t afford. <a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/rural-health\/h1b-visa-fee-rural-hospitals-foreign-worker-shortages-north-dakota\/\"\/>\u201cThat\u2019s the cliff that this train is headed for,\u201d said Charles Wintersteen, a Chicago-based attorney who specializes in health workforce-related immigration.<\/p>\n<p>HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard didn\u2019t answer questions about the number of pending applications or explain what caused the delays. But she said the Exchange Visitor Program has reviewed all fiscal year 2025 clinical J-1 waiver applications, as well as some from fiscal 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The department is \u201cimplementing key process improvements to prevent future delays\u201d and \u201cworking diligently\u201d to evaluate remaining applications ahead of the July 30 deadline, she said.<\/p>\n<p>The psychiatrist in limbo said employers hiring J-1 waiver physicians have to show they were unable to fill positions with American workers. If the doctors they planned to hire can\u2019t arrive on time \u2014 or at all \u2014 patients will have to wait even longer for those vacancies to be filled, they said.<\/p>\n<p>Wintersteen said postgraduate medical education positions are largely funded through Medicare and that \u201cthe taxpayers who pay for that training will not get the benefit of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Physicians and immigration attorneys said HHS hasn\u2019t explained the delays or let them know what to expect from their applications.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy would HHS want to take a program that is working \u2014 a program that places hundreds of U.S. trained international physicians in highly underserved parts of the country every year \u2014 and slow-walk it into non-existence,\u201d Jennifer Minear, a Virginia-based health workforce immigration lawyer, said in an email. \u201cHow does that serve the public health? It is baffling.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter  wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter--background-white\" data-type=\"kff-shared\/newsletter\" data-align=\"center\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__container\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__content\">\n\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/kff-shared\/dist\/\/images\/newsletter-icon.png\" alt=\"Newsletter Icon\" class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__img\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kff-shared-newsletter__text\">\n<h4 class=\"newsletter__title\">\n\t\t\t\t\tEmail Sign-Up\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n<p class=\"newsletter__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to KFF Health News&#8217; free Morning Briefing.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-heading-5-font-size\"><strong>Waylaid Waivers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The U.S. healthcare system depends on foreign-born professionals to fill its ranks of doctors, nurses, technicians, and other health providers, particularly in chronically understaffed facilities in rural and low-income urban communities.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly a quarter of physicians in the U.S. went to medical school outside the U.S. or Canada, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fsmb.org\/u.s.-medical-regulatory-trends-and-actions\/u.s.-medical-licensing-and-disciplinary-data\/physician-licensure\/\">2025 licensing data<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once noncitizens complete postgraduate education in the U.S., which typically ends on June 30, they must return to their home country and wait two years before applying for an H-1B work visa. Or, they can seek <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruralhealthinfo.org\/topics\/j-1-visa-waiver\">a J-1 waiver<\/a>, which lets them remain in the U.S. on H-1B status in exchange for working for three years in a provider shortage area.<\/p>\n<p>The attorneys said they\u2019re seeing delays only in the Exchange Visitor Program, not in the other federal or state J-1 waiver programs.<\/p>\n<p>The HHS clinical care program received 750 waiver applications last year, Minear and Wintersteen said, and is reserved for doctors working in pediatrics, psychiatry, family and internal medicine, or obstetrics and gynecology.<\/p>\n<p>The program typically needs to forward recommendations to the State Department by mid-March, <a href=\"https:\/\/searchlf.ama-assn.org\/letter\/documentDownload?uri=\/unstructured\/binary\/letter\/LETTERS\/lfc.zip\/2026-3-10-Letter-to-HHS-re-Waiver-Program.pdf\">according to a letter<\/a> from John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association.<\/p>\n<p>Minear said HHS stopped processing applications in late September or early October before it started forwarding them again a few months ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the pace is dramatically slower\u201d than usual, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Minear said the State Department usually takes two or three months to review HHS recommendations and must send them to USCIS before July 30 for most of the doctors to stay in the country.<\/p>\n<p>If they don\u2019t make that deadline, Wintersteen said, doctors will have to leave the country unless they obtain another kind of visa, get a J-1 waiver through another program, or extend their current visa by taking board exams or doing additional training.<\/p>\n<p>The psychiatrist, who is supposed to start work on July 1, said they applied for a waiver in order to stay in the U.S with their partner, and because it would let them help the most vulnerable mental health patients. They said their future clients would likely include trafficking survivors, homeless people, and prison or jail inmates. \u201cThat\u2019s the population I want to work with,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-heading-5-font-size\"><strong>Waiver Delay Meets H-1B Dilemma<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/09\/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers\/\">September proclamation<\/a> that railed against the tech industry\u2019s use of H-1B work visas. The order created the $100,000 fee that applies to workers in all fields \u2014 not only tech \u2014 living outside the U.S. The payment doesn\u2019t apply to those already in the country.<\/p>\n<p>As of Feb. 15, employers had paid the fee for 85 workers, <a href=\"https:\/\/ia800103.us.archive.org\/2\/items\/gov.uscourts.cand.457426\/gov.uscourts.cand.457426.117.1.pdf\">according to a court filing<\/a> from USCIS. It\u2019s unclear if any of those payments were for physicians or other medical providers.<\/p>\n<p>The psychiatrist said officials at the hospital that plans to hire them said they can\u2019t afford to pay to bring them back to the U.S. if they must go home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of hospitals who hire J-1 waiver physicians are in underserved areas, and so they treat Medicare and Medicaid patients,\u201d they said. \u201cBy definition, for the most part, they\u2019re not rich hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barry Walker, an attorney in Tupelo, Mississippi, focused on health workforce-related immigration, said employers have already spent money on recruiters and attorneys like him to help with the waiver process.<\/p>\n<p>Adding the H-1B fee is \u201cjust a deal killer, especially for the small, rural hospitals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys said most employers will sponsor physicians in need of an H-1B visa only if they\u2019re in lucrative specialties, such as cardiology or orthopedics, in which they can recover the cost of the fee.<\/p>\n<p>They said healthcare facilities are much less likely to pay the fee to hire foreign nurses, lab technicians, and other healthcare professionals who are more likely than physicians to complete their training outside the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Employers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uscis.gov\/working-in-the-united-states\/h-1b-specialty-occupations\">can request fee exemptions<\/a>, but attorneys said they haven\u2019t heard of a hospital or clinic being granted one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-heading-5-font-size\"><strong>Fighting on Two Fronts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Physicians, hospital leaders, lawmakers, and immigration experts are trying to draw attention to the J-1 waiver delays at HHS while hoping to overturn or limit the new H-1B fee.<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration hasn\u2019t acted on letters from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aha.org\/system\/files\/media\/file\/2025\/09\/aha-urges-administration-to-exempt-health-care-personnel-from-h-1b-visa-program-changes-letter-9-29-2025.pdf\">hospitals<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/searchlf.ama-assn.org\/letter\/documentDownload?uri=\/unstructured\/binary\/letter\/LETTERS\/lfimg.zip\/Sign-on-Letter-Restriction-on-Entry-of-Certain-Nonimmigrant-Workers-Proclamation-9-25-25.pdf\">medical societies<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ruralhealth.us\/nationalruralhealth\/media\/documents\/advocacy\/2025\/nrha-narhc-joint-letter-to-dhs-h1b.pdf\">rural health organizations<\/a> that requested an exception to the $100,000 fee for physicians or all healthcare workers.<\/p>\n<p>In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/119th-congress\/house-bill\/7961\/text\">introduced a bill<\/a> that would create a healthcare exemption. It has not yet had a hearing.<\/p>\n<p>At least three lawsuits \u2014 from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uschamber.com\/cases\/labor-and-employment\/chamber-of-commerce-v-dhs\">U.S. Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/12\/12\/trump-visa-fee-lawsuit-00689510\">group of 20 states<\/a>, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/justiceactioncenter.org\/case\/gnf-v-trump-h1b-visas\/\">coalition of plaintiffs<\/a> that includes a company that recruits foreign nurses and a union that represents medical graduates \u2014 are seeking to end the fee entirely.<\/p>\n<p>As for the J-1 waiver delays, the American Medical Association CEO asked the Exchange Visitor Program to use \u201cemergency batch processing\u201d for physicians with contracts to start work this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Efr\u00e9n Manjarrez, president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, which represents doctors who work in inpatient units, also called for emergency measures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery day this backlog persists is a day that hospitalized patients in these communities face greater risk,\u201d he wrote in a letter to the program.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Canadian hospitals have been recruiting foreign physicians completing their training in the U.S, the psychiatrist said. They said one of their friends accepted an offer, withdrawing their HHS waiver application to head north.<\/p>\n<p>The psychiatrist said if they must leave the U.S., they\u2019ll be separated from their partner and out of a job for months as they work to get licensed in their home country.<\/p>\n<p>Even if their employer were able to afford the H-1B fee, they\u2019re not sure they\u2019d want to return.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis entire process has been so incredibly painful and just soul-crushing,\u201d they said. \u201cI would rather go to a country that would appreciate my motivation to work with patients.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/kffhealthnews.org\/health-industry\/hhs-exchange-visitor-program-visa-waiver-j1-h1b-delays-foreign-doctors-deadline\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of foreign doctors about to complete training in the U.S. will have to leave the country if the federal government doesn\u2019t rapidly process their visa waiver applications, which have been languishing since the fall and winter, immigration attorneys say. Use Our Content\u00a0 \u00a0It can be republished for free.\u00a0 The waiver program, run by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-2"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}