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Physician visa hold lifts. What hospital leaders still need to fix

Federal immigration officials have quietly stopped applying a months-long processing hold to physicians, but the change leaves hospitals with backlogs, open questions and a $100,000 H-1B fee that has not moved.

3 min read
Physician visa hold lifts. What hospital leaders still need to fix

Executive takeaway

The physician hold is easing, not solved. Treat every pending visa as an operational risk, keep counsel active on stalled cases, and weigh the H-1B fee against the real cost of an empty position.

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What changed

A December policy tied to the administration’s travel ban paused decisions on visa extensions, work permits and green cards for citizens of 39 countries. USCIS applied the pause to renewals and updates for people already working in the US, even though the ban itself did not cover existing visa holders. More than 10,000 physicians on H-1B visas and about 17,000 on J-1 visas were caught up, along with thousands of nurses, lab technicians and other clinical staff. Some physicians were placed on administrative leave while their paperwork sat.

In late April, USCIS updated its website to say physicians are no longer subject to the hold. There was no formal announcement. The agency says it is processing certain applications tied to physicians but has not said which ones.

What remains unresolved

  • Scope. It is not clear which application types are covered, or whether nurses and other clinicians benefit.
  • Backlog. J-1 waiver applications that once cleared in one to three weeks are now queued in the hundreds. Some hospitals paid the $2,965 expedited processing fee and still waited months.
  • Process. Hospitals do not know whether they must file a new request for each affected physician.
  • Cost. The $100,000 payment attached to new H-1B petitions since September 2025 is a separate policy and remains in place. A House bill to exempt physicians and other health workers has sat in the Judiciary Committee since March 17. In an AHA survey last November, 64% of hospitals using or planning to use the H-1B program said they would pause, defer or limit recruitment because of the fee.

What to do this month

Immigrants make up 27% of US physicians and surgeons and 16% of registered nurses, according to KFF figures. For rural and safety-net hospitals that lean on international medical graduates, staffing plans should assume continued friction.

  • Build a roster of every clinician whose status is pending, with expiration dates and the clinical coverage at risk.
  • Ask immigration counsel to follow up on stalled cases now that processing has resumed, and document every contact with USCIS.
  • Compare the cost of the $100,000 fee with locum tenens spending and the revenue lost to vacancies before deciding to pause recruitment.
  • Note that the September proclamation runs 12 months unless extended, and that the Homeland Security secretary may exempt an entire industry. Work with your state hospital association on the case for a health care exemption.

Archive entry for May 11, 2026, added Nov. 11, 2026.

Sources

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