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September
2008 Newsletter September 29, 2008 TO OUR PHYSICIAN AND ACADEMIC CLIENTELE:: Both houses of Congress have now passed a stop-gap measure that will extend the Conrad State 30 Waiver Program until March 6, 2009. The sole substantive change from the existing legislation is that the "Flexibility Waivers" have been doubled from five to ten waivers per year. This will provide state departments of health increased flexibility to recommend waivers to meritorious placements in which the physician will serve indigent and the medically underserved patients even though the physician's physical location of practice is not located in a designated medically underserved area. This enactment is now being sent to President Bush who is expected to sign this legislation within the next 10 days. I envision that the main beneficiaries of this slight redesign in the waiver program will be academic medical centers, which generally serve as important safety-net providers of medical services to the indigent and medically underserved. In many cases, academic medical centers are not located in medically underserved areas and thus far, the five waiver slots have oftentimes proven to be insufficient to satisfy the physician staffing needs of such institutions. Particularly in recent years, many states have not used up their entire annual allotment of 30 waivers and have seen their unused numbers go to waste without being able to satisfy the legitimate waiver needs of medical facilities that substantially contribute to the healthcare needs of at-risk populations. This amended legislation is intended to relieve some of the pressures for such institutions by doubling the number of "Flexibility Waivers" and to give state healthcare planners increased flexibility to channel J-1 physicians into placements of maximum social benefit. Assuming that the President signs this legislation (as seems highly likely), the states will be able to use the new, expanded "Flexibility Waivers" immediately - i.e., in the fiscal year that will start on October 1, 2008. We anticipate that following the Presidential election, the new Congress will again take up a more far-reaching, long-term consideration of this waiver program. Generally, the Conrad Waiver Program is regarded as a popular and effective initiative to enhance physician coverage in hard-to-fill placements of benefit to the indigent, uninsured, and medically at-risk. So, the basic, underlying public policy objectives of this program seem to resonate well within the communities and states. What remains to be seen is whether successor legislation will keep the current architecture of the program or substantially revise and enhance the entire role of International Medical Graduates as an important physician provider source to meet the physician workforce shortages that now afflict so many communities. We intend to remain an active voice in new developments
for the foreign physician community and their employers and important
source of information on these new developments. Please feel
free to contact us with questions on this information or any
other immigration-related development of interest to you. ROBERT D. ARONSON
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Aronson & Associates,
P.A. |