Schumer announces expanded effort to address rural healthcare worker shortage

Press Release, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After helping successfully deliver the long-desired visa waiver program for physicians last year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Monday announced the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) will expand its new J-1 Visa Waiver Program to include physicians practicing specialty medicine, helping bring doctors in critically needed medical fields to Upstate New York.

Schumer said the new and expanded program can help address the healthcare worker in critically needed specialty fields for Upstate NY communities like anesthesiologists, cardiologists and cancer specialists by easing the visa requirements for these doctors, who are trained in the U.S. and agree to practice in underserved areas of the Northern Border region like Upstate NY.

“The new and expanded visa-waiver program for specialty physicians, like anesthesiologists and cancer specialists, is a major shot in the arm for recruiting doctors to address the national healthcare worker shortage in rural communities across Upstate NY,” Schumer said. “I am proud we secured these vital visas to help tackle the healthcare worker shortage in Upstate NY head on, and to ensure New York rural communities have access to the quality medical care they need.”

Schumer explained that currently NBRC’s waiver program is only open to physicians offered primary care positions in the Northern Border region. However, as of April 1, 2024, with this new expansion waiver requests for physicians practicing specialty medicine will also be begin being accepted. The program is modeled, in part, after the Appalachian Regional Commission’s (ARC) successful J-1 Visa waiver program.

Schumer is currently leading the charge in the Senate to renew the Northern Border Regional Commission’s economic development programs. Established in 2008, the NBRC is a federal-state partnership focused on the economic revitalization of communities across the Northern Border region, which includes New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

The Commission is composed of the governors of the four Northern Border states and a federal co-chair, and provides financial and technical assistance to communities in the region to support entrepreneurs, improve water, broadband, and transportation infrastructure, and promote other initiatives to improve the region’s economy.

The northern border region of New York State includes 28 counties: Cayuga, Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Genesee, Greene, Hamilton, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Livingston, Madison, Montgomery, Niagara, Oneida, Orleans, Oswego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Seneca, St. Lawrence, Sullivan, Washington, Warren, Wayne and Yates.