Axios - Rural America's disproportionate reliance on immigrant doctors could widen gaps in care as the Trump administration tightens immigration restrictions.
Changes like the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas are threatening already-stretched rural hospitals that could be left with even fewer primary care doctors and specialists.
Rural areas are more than three times as dependent on immigrant doctors than what's expected given their overall immigrant populations, researchers wrote this week in JAMA Internal Medicine.
- "As our population ages, we're going to have a crisis where we need more and more humans to help support our people who are sick," said Manav Midha, lead author and a medical student at Mt. Sinai Icahn School of Medicine.
Rural parts of the country have a harder time attracting young doctors and are more prone to physician shortages.
- They've closed gaps in the past by turning to foreign-born and internationally trained clinicians: Congress for more than two decades has allowed up to 30 immigrant physicians a year in each state to stay in the U.S. after finishing their residencies, if they practiced in a rural or underserved area.
- Many health systems also sponsor H-1B visas as a way to attract professionals with specialized skills.
- About 1% of all doctors practicing in the U.S. have an H-1B visa, and the percentage of physicians with the visa is nearly two times higher in rural counties than urban ones.
President Trump last year dramatically increased the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 from about $3,500. Medical groups say this will accelerate looming physician shortages and have asked that health workers be exempt.
- The State Department last month also paused issuing immigrant visas for people from 75 countries. Workers from 69 of those countries make up 8% of the U.S. health care workforce, per a KFF analysis. Keep reading
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