Under a plain reading of the statute, such a physician should only have to work three years, not five. Technically, a motion to reopen is not a new application. It simply reopens an existing case. Section 5 leaves some questions unanswered. We will have to wait and see how the INS interprets these and other questions.
Regulations are probably many months off.
In the meantime, doctors can try to file directly under the statute and hope for the best. However, at least one INS regional service center has suspended adjudication of national interest waiver cases for foreign doctors working in medically underserved areas. The service center apparently feels that it is better to wait to have a policy in place rather than denying a case in error that could be approved under the new law. It remains to be seen whether the other three INS service centers will also hold up such cases, or when INS headquarters will issue an interim policy pending formal regulations. The new immigration law provides only modest relief for parts of the country suffering from a shortage of doctors.