H-1B Visa Order To Limit Number of Foreign-Born Doctors

Before most of the Risk Management and Workers’ Comp industry goes to Philadelphia for next week’s Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) annual conference, I want to share an article on Kaiser Health News about what the recent executive order on H1-B visas will have on healthcare, and by extension, workers’ comp.

I wrote about this two weeks ago when I said that the travel ban will affect the physician shortage in the United States.

According to Kaiser, limiting the number of foreign doctors who can practice in the US could have a significant impact on certain hospitals and states that rely on them.

A study in JAMA found that more that 2,100 US employers were certified to fill nearly 10,500 physician jobs nationwide in 2016, representing 1.4% of physician workforce overall.

States such as New York, Michigan, and Illinois account for most of the H1-B visa applications for foreign physicians. a third of the total.

North Dakota, on the other hand, had the most applicants as a percentage of its workforce, or 4.7%.

While the focus of the executive order was to clamp down on the loopholes in the program that allowed tech companies to hire foreign workers for high skilled jobs that Americans could take, it will also have a negative effect on how patients will receive care in some US hospitals.

And coupled with the fact that the process of getting to practice here without an executive order is difficult and time-consuming, means that both general health care and workers’ comp patients may not be able to get necessary treatment due to the predicted physician shortage.

So while general healthcare can offer an alternative in the form of medical travel, it is high time that work comp does the same.

Or do you really want your claimant patients to wait months before getting needed surgery or other medical procedures?

 

Global Medical Tourism Industry Market Analysis

Note: The following is a re-print from U.S. Domestic Medical Travel.com, one of two publications from CPR Strategic Marketing Communications. They also publish Medical Travel Today.com, and both publications have re-printed several of my posts on both of their newsletters, so I am returning the favor, which they have paid me many times over. I do not vouch for the accuracy of the data in the article, so please address any comments to the author.

Here is the article:

Global Medical Tourism Market By Treatment Type and by Region – Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends and Forecasts (2016 – 2021)

The global medical tourism market has been estimated to be valued at USD 14,278 million, and it is anticipated to reach a market value of USD 21,380 million by the end of 2021 at a projected CAGR of 8.41% during the forecast period, 2016 to 2021.

Medical tourism involves travelling to another country for obtaining medical treatment. It is a high-growth industry driven by globalization and rising healthcare costs in the developed countries. A study shows that in United States, about 750,000 residents travel abroad for healthcare each year. A range of governments across the globe has taken up various initiatives to stimulate and improve the medical tourism in the respective countries in order to improve patient care and help expand the market. Many countries could see potential for significant economic development in the emergent field of medical tourism. Cosmetic surgery, dental care, elective surgery, fertility treatments, cardiovascular surgery and genetic disorder treatments are the most preferred healthcare treatments in this sector.

High cost of medical treatment in the developed countries and availability of those treatments at a lower cost in other countries have fueled the development of medical tourism. In addition, the availability of latest medical technologies and a growing compliance on international quality standards drive this market. The use of English as the main working language solves the problem of communication and patient satisfaction, adding to the growth of this market. Enhanced patient care, health insurance portability, advertising and marketing help the medical tourism industry to grow at a fast rate. On the other hand, infection outbreaks during or after travel, issues in following up with the patients before returning to their own country, and medical record transfer issues are the factors restraining the growth of the tourism industry. However, the unavailability of certain treatments at a lower cost hampers this market more than any other factors.

The global market for the medical tourism industry is segmented based on treatment type (cosmetic treatment, dental treatment, cardiovascular treatment, orthopedics treatment, bariatric surgery, fertility treatment, eye surgery and general treatment) and geographical regions. Cosmetic treatments hold the largest market share, as cosmetic surgeries are not covered by insurance.

Based on geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. APAC holds the largest market share, followed by Europe. Thailand and Malaysia are strong markets with prospect for significant growth, followed by Korea.

The key players in the global medical tourism market are Bangkok Hospital Medical Center, Asian Heart Institute, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., Bumrungrad International Hospital, Fortis Healthcare Ltd., Min-Sheng General Hospital, Raffles Medical Group, Prince Court Medical Center, KPJ Healthcare Berhad, and Samitivej Sukhumvit.

For more information please click on:
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/publication/mkptu7l/4109970

Travel Ban to Affect Physician Shortage: What Medical Travel Can Do

The following post, from fellow blogger, Joe Paduda, who has a guest post from former WCRI CEO, Dr. Rick Victor, states that the current political regime in Washington’s ban on travel from certain countries and ban on allowing a certain religious minority into the country will further exacerbate the already projected physician shortage that this writer had previously discussed in earlier posts on the subject.

Here is the link to Joe’s and Dr. Victor’s posts.

If there ever was a good enough reason for the implementation of medical travel into general health care, and into workers’ comp medical care, this is it.

Do you really want to see injured workers go without treatment or without needed surgeries because there aren’t enough US-born physicians and surgeons, because some narcissistic, egomaniacal, billionaire con artist has banned needed foreign-born physicians from entering the country?

Who knows? Maybe one of these doctors has a revolutionary new treatment or therapy that can bring relief to millions of Americans, or can cure a terrible disease?

Banning them only makes America weaker, not Great Again.

P.S. Here is a follow-up post from Peter Rousmaniere’s Working Immigrants blog.