SHM Sends Letter of Support for the H-1Bs for Physicians and the Healthcare Workforce Act

Dear Representatives Lawler, Clarke, Salazar and Bishop,

The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), representing the nation’s hospitalists, is pleased to support the H-1Bs for Physicians and the Healthcare Workforce Act (H.R. 7961). This bipartisan legislation will exempt physicians and other health care workers from the $100,000 fee for H-1B petitions that was imposed by the administration last September. It also prohibits new H-1B fees from being imposed on health care workers that exceed the existing statutory fees.

Hospitalists are front-line clinicians in America’s acute care hospitals and focus on the general medical care of hospitalized patients. While the proportion of H-1Bs for physicians is small (under 3% or all approvals), H-1Bs are a vital tool for addressing healthcare workforce needs. Hospitalists are typically board certified as Internal Medicine or Family Medicine physicians, specialties that have among the highest number of immigrant physicians in the workforce today. This fee, which serves a disincentive for hiring, would disproportionately affect hospitalists and primary care physicians. It is already affecting hiring around the country and is hitting rural and underserved communities the hardest.

For hospitalists, ongoing staffing shortages negatively impact our ability to care for patients and harm the entire healthcare system. Highly skilled immigrant clinicians such as those on H-1B visas, help alleviate the strain and maintain patient access in some of the most-challenging-to-staff parts of the country. However, the current $100,000 fee for H-1B visas is

entirely out of reach for hospitals and hospital medicine groups that desperately need access to this workforce to meet the needs of patients and their communities. 

The hospitalist workforce and our patients rely upon physicians from other countries to provide high-quality and accessible inpatient care.  SHM fully supports H.R. 7961 and stands ready to work with you toward its passage.

Sincerely,

Efrén C. Manjarrez, MD, FACP, SFHM
President
Society of Hospital Medicine