On Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) resumed premium processing for all H-1B petitions filed for physicians under the Conrad Waiver program, as well as interested government interagency waivers.

By way of background, the Conrad 30 Waiver program allows certain medical doctors to stay in the United States on a temporary visa after completing their medical training to work in rural and urban areas that have shortage of physicians. Upon obtaining these Conrad 30 waivers, physicians then change to H-1B visa status to commence their employment.  Since its inception, more than 15,000 physicians have participated in the Conrad 30 program.

Important to note is that premium processing remains temporarily suspended for all other H-1B petitions. USCIS, however, advised that it was reviewing workloads in order to reinstate premium processing for H-1B petitions.