Doctors should be exempt from new H-1B visa fee, AMA says

Physicians should be exempt from a new $100,000 fee for workers from other countries who are in the U.S. on H-1B visas, the Chicago-based American Medical Association and 53 other medical societies told the federal government Thursday.

The medical associations wrote a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Thursday urging her to exempt all physicians — including residents, fellows and researchers — from the new fee. About one-fourth of licensed physicians in the U.S. were trained in other countries, according to the letter.

“… There is a growing need for a larger physician workforce that the U.S. cannot fill on its own, in part because the U.S. does not have enough people in the younger generation to care for our aging country,” according to the letter. “Acc