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VA faces delays filling physician posts

Work visas to employ IMGs ran out in February. Next year, the situation could get worse.

By Myrle Croasdale, amednews staff. Aug. 23/30, 2004.

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Many Veterans Affairs Medical Centers depend heavily on international medical graduates to staff their physician ranks. But a cap on the commonly used H-1B visa has forced some VA facilities to postpone putting these physicians to work until Oct. 1, when work visas will become available for fiscal 2005.

The delays are putting additional strain on the VA health care system, which is already experiencing physician shortages, particularly among specific specialties. Experts say that without an act of Congress to expand the visa supply, H-1B visas for 2005 could be devoured even more rapidly than in 2004, when the allotted 65,000 were gone by Feb. 17.

The previous annual limit had been set at 195,000, but pressure from growing unemployment within the technology sector brought the cap down to 65,000.

"It is true the 65,000 annual limit on H-1B visas has adversely affected VA recruitment," said Karen Fedele, public affairs specialist for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, in an e-mail. "There is a shortage of physicians in most categories, and the non-citizen physician can be a critical part of VA's care."

Most IMGs work in the United States under an H1-B technology professions work visa or a J-1 student visa. Physicians renewing H1-B visas were not affected by the limit, and those working at educational institutions were exempt. But VA hospitals were not free from the cap.

"This was never an issue until now," said Robert Aronson, an immigration attorney and partner of Inger & Aronson in Minneapolis. "We never got close to the 195,000 cap. It's only since Oct. 1, 2003, that [people] started thinking about it."