OSF HealthCare says the Trump administration’s higher price tag to bring skilled foreign workers into the United States will cost the Central Illinois medical provider up to $7 million a year.
Petitions for the H-1B visa program, used by employers to fill technical and highly skilled jobs, now cost $100,000 per applicant. That’s compared to the $5,000 prior to Sept. 21.
According to U.S. immigration data, OSF hired more than 150 people through the H-1B program since 2021. In a statement, OSF chief human resources officer Shelley Parn said hiring international clinicians is part of OSF’s comprehensive recruiting strategy.
Parn said the fee change “poses a significant challenge for health systems nationwide,” and said OSF is “actively pursuing all available options, including waiver processes and advocating for health care organizations to be exempt from these fees.”
“Recruiting skilled clinicians is essential to sustaining care in underserved areas, and we believe these proposed fees could create barriers to that mission,” Parn said.
State Department data indicate about half of their H1-B visa applicants since 2021 were on behalf of the agency’s Multi-Specialty Group that provides specialized care in areas like cardiology, anesthesiology and addiction medicine. Parn said the program was used to fill “clinician vacancies for physicians, residents, nurses, and radiology and laboratory.”
Parn said OSF is “committed to ensuring patients have access to the care they need,” but indicated an additional $6-7 million in annual expenses for visas. OSF covers the cost associated with sponsorship, which are funded through hospital operating budgets. Public records estimate annual revenue of nearly $4 billion. Parn said visa fees are drawn from personnel budgets and the change impacts OSF's bottom line.
Intended to curb outsourcing
The Peoria-based health care network, which includes OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington, is among several Bloomington-Normal employers who hire H-1B visa holders — including Rivian and Illinois State University.
Champaign-based Carle Health, which also has a large presence in Bloomington-Normal, has not relied on the program, applying for just 15 H-1B visas since 2021. Responding to questions from WGLT, Carle said the organization considers H-1B visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the length of time a vacancy has remained open and whether they can fill the position with qualified U.S. applicants.
A majority of the 50-plus H-1B approvals granted to ISU since 2021 are for candidates who filled specialty vacancies. A spokesperson for ISU said it remains committed to recruiting qualified candidates and has not been impacted by the new H-1B employment fee. The university said it does not anticipate changing its hiring practices.
The executive order implementing changes to the H-1B program are part of the Trump administration’s push to prioritize American workers and avoid company outsourcing to foreign countries.
Immigration attorney and ISU legal scholar Matt Kuenning said the order accuses foreign tech companies of abusing the program and suppressing the wages of American workers, with "companies in the U.S. outsourcing their IT department by hiring these firms that employ mostly H-1B workers, and then firing their U.S. technical IT staff," he said.
State Farm outsourced IT services in 2023 to HCLTech, an Indian technology company. State Farm said in a statement it doesn’t "foresee changes to the H-1B program impacting their hiring strategy.”
Startups will hurt the most
According to Ajay Samant, an economist and dean of Illinois State University’s College of Business, greatly increasing the price of entry for skilled foreign workers is likely to hurt American startups the most.
“Newer companies and smaller ones will struggle to meet the new H-1B requirements,” he said, especially when looking to fill entry-level positions.
Samant said the H-1B program is designed to fill needed jobs that employers say have been difficult to fill with qualified American workers. And decades of disinvestment in public universities is one reason for the shortage, he said, with fewer U.S. workers having enough science, engineering and math training to perform certain jobs.
“Public universities have been chronically underfunded and do not have additional resources to deploy in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] programs,” he said. “And that has led to a shortage of U.S. workers all over the country, all over the state, and including in McLean County.”
The electric automaker Rivian, which makes EVs in Normal, has won 619 new employment approvals since 2021, federal data show. It's unclear how many of those people have worked in Normal, if any. Rivian declined to comment for this story.
“Some employers, especially in the technology sector, may find it more economical to outsource these services rather than pay the higher H-1B fees and employ people right here,” Samant said.
