Health Care Blog

The December 2009 Visa Bulletin has no change in any Employment Based Visa Category, except for a slight uptick in India EB3. In the November 2009 Visa Bulletin showed 22APR01. It moved a week.

EB1: All Current
EB2: All Current, except China (01APR05) and India (22JAN05)
EB3: All 01JUN02, except India (01May01).

The one silver lining may be that, unlike in November 2009, the December 2009 did not include an explanation in the bulletin for the lack of progression in the dates. Here is November’s explanation:

E. EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCE VISA AVAILABILITY
The receipt of demand from Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices has far exceeded their earlier indications of cases eligible for immediate processing. As a result, it has been necessary to hold most of the Employment cut-off dates for November. At this time, it is not possible to provide any estimates regarding future cut-off date movements.

Today’s Prescriptions’ post highlights that Nurse Practitioners will surely be a growing field in the US. As noted in the NYT blog, “the American Academy of Family Practitioners projects a shortfall of 40,000 physician generalists — family practitioners, pediatricians, general internists and geriatricians — by 2020, even without significant changes to the current health care system.” Other graduate level nursing education is also likely to be in greater demand in the next decade.

Because of this demand, and because of the relatively easy H-1B nonimmigrant visa option for Advance Practice Nurses, the safest path to US immigration is to obtain Advance Practice Certification. For staffing companies and recruiters, Advance Practice Nursing is the next need.

The USCIS has reported a jump in cap-subject approvals in October. As of October 30, 2009, approximately 53,800 H-1B cap-subject petitions and approximately 20,000 petitions qualifying for the advanced degree cap exemption have been filed. The Masters quota cap effectively has been reached, although a few “extra” numbers may be released if the USCIS denies some pending Masters cap-subject cases.

Also, the USCIS just has announced that it will continue to accept the old Form G-28.

While this is clearly good news — demand for Physical Therapy, Registered Nursing, Occupation Therapist, Speech Langauge Pathologists and other healthcare occupations still expect to be in great demand — a word of caution may also be in order. An improving job market in the U.S. will likely eventually be reflected in an increase in H-1B petitions filed with the USCIS. Among the top twenty occupations predicted for significant growth were several in IT and healthcare, including: Systems Engineers, Physical Therapists, Computer/Network Security Consultants, Software Developers, and Occupational Therapists. These occupations have been common users of the H-1B program in the United States. Physical Therapists, for example, have long been designated by the U.S. Department of Labor as a national shortage occupation and recruited from abroad.

The USCIS last updated the 2010 H-1B “Cap Count” on September 25, 2009. At that time, there had been approximately 46,700 H-1B petitions filed towards the annual quota of 65,000. Most casual observers see that this is only a few thousand more than were filed as of April 1, 2009, the first day employers were able to file H-1B petitions for the current fiscal year. However, insiders believe that while the economy has significantly reduced the number of H-1B petitions being filed. There has also been a large increase in denials which has impacted the overall number of petitions counted against the quota.

In other FCCPT news, FCCPT recently discontinued use of the Type II Certification. Now all applicants to FCCPT must obtain the Type I Certificate. FCCPT has also announced the implementation of the most current Coursework Evaluation Tool-5, for use as of July 1, 2009. Any evaluations for current standards begun after July 1, 2009 will reflect the requirements on the new tool CWT-5.

The Annual Conference takes place in Chicago and runs from November 1-3, 2009. Chris’ session is Monday at 4:45 and is one of the Learning Sessions.

Chris’ talk will be on Strategic Healthcare Immigration. He will demonstrate the best practices in recruiting foreign trained RNs, PTs and other allied professionals. The session will highlight pitfalls in the process, and advise human resource professionals on how to avoid such pitfalls.

If you are attending the conference, please contact Chris if there are any specific items that you would like him to address.

Rep. Wexler is the primary sponsor of HR 2536, the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act. HR 2536 has failed to gain traction in Congress this term, garnering only 4 co-sponsors. Last term a similar bill had over 20 co-sponsors.

The news isn’t as dire as it might seem. The most likely positive scenario is that the ENSRA is folded into Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Charles Schumer (D-NY) had planned to introduce CIR legislation in September. He has since changed tact and wants to first get GOP support for a possible bipartisan bill. He is working behind the scenes to do so.

EB1: All Current
EB2: All Current, except China (01APR05) and India (22JAN05)
EB3: All 01JUN02, except India (22APR01).

The November Bulletin did contain this note:

E. EMPLOYMENT PREFERENCE VISA AVAILABILITY
The receipt of demand from Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices has far exceeded their earlier indications of cases eligible for immediate processing. As a result, it has been necessary to hold most of the Employment cut-off dates for November. At this time, it is not possible to provide any estimates regarding future cut-off date movements.

Of lesser apparent newsworthiness, earlier in the week, three Americans shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Although none of the three are nurses or allied workers , two of the three Americans were immigrants to this country. Since this Blog focuses on the intersection of healthcare and visa policy, this is the story that I will highlight.

One of the winners, Dr. Blackburn, came to the United States in the 1970s because it was “notably attractive” as a place to do science. America is still a magnet for foreign scientists, she said, “but one shouldn’t take that for granted.”

There is a parallel to America’s current policy with respect to healthcare professionals, which presently is broken. While few immigrants, or Americans for that matter, make the kinds of these contributions that these two have made, thousands of foreign trained healthcare workers have made the kinds of day-to-day contributions that enormously enhance America. By enacting sensible healthcare visa reform, the US can insure that America remains a magnet for the best and brightest.