Medical exam / interview timing

[sarrobo 18]

Hello-

 

I'm a dual US/Canadian citizen (lived in the US most of my life), and submitted an i130 form for my husband on December 22, 2016 and they've received my form and cashed my check. I know we're still in the very early stages, but I've been looking at the timelines, wiki, etc. just trying to gauge the process and wrap my head around things.

 

My question is regarding the interview and medical exam. We currently live in Manitoba, so we will have to travel to Montreal for our interview (based on what I've read) and also for the medical exam, as there are no practitioners in our province. Can these both be done on the same trip? Or is it necessary to take two trips?  Any advice/thoughts/experience? 

 

Apologies if this is an often-asked question - I'm new to the site and attempted a search but didn't see anything... Thanks in advance.

[mrsu 2]

Yes. We had to travel to Montreal from Alberta and we're able to do both our medical exams and interviews in same trip.  But we did stay 10 days. We scheduled our medical exams the day after arriving. This is because it takes several days to process the exams and go back in person to pick up results. You need the packages they give you for your interview. We stayed at a nice hotel just down the street from the medical office and got a suite with a kitchen so we could make meals etc as I had 2 young children. It was easiest to walk there as there is no parking.  We were also close enough to walk to our interview,  I think it was about 15 blocks from the office where we did our medical exams. 

 

[sarrobo 18]

16 hours ago, mrsu said:

Yes. We had to travel to Montreal from Alberta and we're able to do both our medical exams and interviews in same trip.  But we did stay 10 days. We scheduled our medical exams the day after arriving. This is because it takes several days to process the exams and go back in person to pick up results. You need the packages they give you for your interview. We stayed at a nice hotel just down the street from the medical office and got a suite with a kitchen so we could make meals etc as I had 2 young children. It was easiest to walk there as there is no parking.  We were also close enough to walk to our interview,  I think it was about 15 blocks from the office where we did our medical exams. 

 

Thank you for this! That makes perfect sense, and sounds like a good plan that may work for us. Would you say 10 days is the minimum necessary? 

[mrsu 2]

I dont know if 10 days would be necessary, in our case it was simply because of when our interview fell, there was a holiday day before that so processing times for our medical exam took an extra 2 days and we wanted to be absolutely certain we would have our medical exams back in plenty of time. As soon as you have your interview date call the medical office because appointment times are limited to certain days and times. 

Also, I was a bit confusing, sorry. Our hotel was only 3 blocks from medical office. Then medical office was about a 15 block walk to consulate for interview. 

There was a really nice Supermarket about 6 blocks further past the medical office, it was the French partner of Superstore. We walked there and then cabbed back to hotel cause of bags. I highly recommend not bothering with a rental car.  Parking is extremely limited in downtown Montreal and everything is in walking distance and cabs are cheap and plentiful. Also you can request a flat rate for the cab ride from the airport to downtown motels. It's quite the cab ride, ours was over an hour and although I am used to city driving I was extremely thankful I didn't have to drive that stretch!!!

Also, ask ahead of time about extra costs for your medical exam. They gave us a flat cost per person when I called and I had budgeted that amount. It ended up being a LOT more. They had to give us all Hepatitis B vaccines as they are necessary for US. Had I known that ahead of time I could have hadone them done at my local health unit and paid about a tenth of the cost. Also there were extra xray charges for mine, they didn't require chest x-rays for the children but they do for adults and I had not known about that either. Our exams ended up being $1100 more than planned so I would ask when you book about any of those extra costs. Also, the staff at the medical office had very limited English. They were very nice and as helpful as they could be but communication was a bit difficult when they were trying to explain things. 

Again, you wouldn't have to stay the entire time but our flights from Calgary were rather expensive and long so it made no sense monetarily to fly back home for a couple days in between medical exam and interview. But if you had a short cheap flight it might make sense.