rhirhi

Good morning all!

So... I was relaxing watching TV last night around 8:00pm and I received a text message from a number that I didn't recognize. I opened the message and it was from USCIS with a notification that my case had been updated. On a Sunday night?....

Anyway, I logged online and this is what I see:

New Card Is Being Produced

On April 19, 2015, we ordered your new card for Receipt Number MSCxxxxxxxxxx, and will mail it to the address you gave us. If you move, go to www.uscis.gov/addresschange to give us your new mailing address.

I was SHOCKED!

June 25th filer here....NPIW on September 25th, and I also contacted Ombudsman on March 26th. I think it must have helped!

God Speed to all of you who are still waiting, keep thinking positive and it'll happen!

Congrats! Gives me some hope for my case

vicks5721, what a positive story! Love it

I actually realised a few weeks ago that I feel really settled here all of a sudden. Just after Christmas I went through a rough patch where I felt almost constantly frustrated by the differences between here and the UK, then of a sall udden I felt much better. Was a nice feeling! I'm starting to figure out which brands are good, how health insurance works and all those things which made me feel like I'd just landed here from another planet. I actually did our tax return which made me feel very proud! Still waiting on the refund though, so whether I did it right or not is another matter entirely

Does it have to be expired first? My British passport doesn't expire till 2017, but I'm hoping to go back to visit in 2016. I have heart palpitations worrying because my green card is my married name and passport is maiden name.

Nope, mine wasn't expired when I sent it in for renewal. I got an extra 9 months added on to the expiry date of my new passport due to the fact that my old passport hadn't expired yet.

Did you get your old one back with your K1 visa in it, or did you have to surrender the old one? Looking at this right now and wondering if the K1 visa will need to be shown at a later stage during/post AOS. I called the UK passport office this afternoon and the agent was a little confused and seemed to think I wanted a post dated passport valid from the wedding date, to travel on for honeymoon, despite my explaining that I did not intend to travel on the new one any time soon. He was, however, very clear that my current passport would have to be surrendered to 'validate' the new one.

I got my old one back with the corners cut off to show it is now invalid.

Hi all, posted here a while ago and thought I'd check back in. Still no news on the green card, though I see I haven't been waiting as long as others! A few things:

My medical for K1 visa was on January 31st 2014. Will I need to redo my medical as it's been over a year?

I'm hoping it won't come to this, but how many months before the expiry of my EAD should I apply to renew it? I think it's 3 months but wanted to double check

Hey everyone haven't posted in this thread in a while, just thought I would check in. To be honest I was expecting my green card by now, despite receiving the interview waiver letter back in October.

I recently did this. It was very straightforward. I was able to make the application online and then just send off a signed declaration form with a certified marriage certificate and my old passport. Think I got my new passport back just over a week after I sent my old one in. No need to go back to the UK.

I miss yogurt too! Stonyfield is an OK replacement as it doesn't really taste as painfully sweet and unnatural as many of the others I've tried, but it's still a little thick and goopy.

Hope you had as much fun with the big storm as I did fellow Bostonian!

That's a really good idea! Shame the Vietnamese don't dig Cadbury's or my suburb would be a chocolate goldmine!

I was shocked at how much snow actually fell! Can't currently get out of the back door of the apartment building without being knee-deep in snow. Hope you managed to stay warm

Mmmmmm those are yummy! Don't think my friend meant that though....think he meant meat actually cooked into the yorkie as a filling. You've given me ideas now though, gonna have to attempt one of those big yorkies with the dinner in the middle!

I cooked my first yorkshire pudding after moving here I've been using this recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/yorkshire-pudding-87480

Has worked every time so far, and went down a storm at Thanksgiving with our American friends (though one of them wanted me to put meat in the middle next time and didn't understand why it was just empty space inside...blasphemy!)

So I passed my interview on Friday! I am super happy! Iv gone for the choice of going picking it up (in manchester) because I heard it may be quicker by a day. So from the experience in this forum my question is do you think it will arive by Friday? I checked today and it said "administrative processing"

Couldn't say whether you'll get it by Friday, but don't worry about AP. It's usually just a formality for the UK Embassy. Mine was in it for a day and a half from what I remember.

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I introduced our American friends (we had a "friendsgiving") to yorkshire puddings. They went down a storm

The envelope that all the papers were in was bigger than A4. I tapped the envelope on a table to get all the papers neatly into one corner of the envelope, then folded over the surplus envelope paper so that it was now an an A4 envelope. It was then able to fit into my handbag. I just unfolded it whilst I was waiting in the immigration line and handed it over. I had no problems

Your current policy is more of a catastrophic coverage. If you had a terrible accident requiring a lot of treatment. Or if something major happened you would not believe the costs. I had to spend a week in the hospital after surgery and the hospital billed $40,000. That did not include the surgeon, anesthesiologist, or pathologist bills. If you were diagnosed with cancer, your bills could approach half a million in a year. A round of chemo can cost $10-15 thousand. One CT scan--thousands. On the positive side, your insurance has negotiated rates with those in network. That hospital may bill $40k, but has agreed in the contract to charge no more than $15k for those particular services. You are never responsible for anything over the negotiated price. And the insurance will pay the bulk of that...maybe 80% (after deductible) depending on your policy. The other thing to look at is the out-of-pocket max. There is an amount that once you reach that point, your insurance will pay 100% for the rest of the year.

So examples of choices.

Pay $200/month ($2400/year) knowing you will probably bear the costs of your one visit per year, but knowing if something godawful happens you are covered for huge expenses. And your actual rate is negotiated lower than the price tag the doctor has on his services. Drugs may have a different deductible. Mine always did that separately. So likely not $2000. Call the pharmacy and ask how much more on your deductible. They obviously have it on record and may be quicker than calling the insurance number.

Pay $800/month ($9600/year) with maybe a $250 deductible, knowing you may still pay the cost of that one office visit, but if you go two or three times, the insurance would kick in after the low deductible.

It is a guessing game or gamble really and the policies, premiums, deductibles, and out-of pocket all vary. The lowest premiums mean you may pay $2000 before you get insurance help, but at least you are taken care of for the catastrophes. That's kind of what insurance is all about. The company offering you low premiums is gambling that you are young and healthy so won't have a heart attack or cancer or an auto accident that breaks all your bones. And your high deductible means they don't really pay for a few routine office visits. And at least with insurance the high sticker price is negotiated when you stay in network.

So that's some roughed out basics that doesn't really cover the details, but maybe helps you understand a little better when looking at policies.

Superb as always, thanks Nich-Nick. Yeah, there's not really much we can do about our current policy now, but that helps immensely when it comes to choosing a new policy for next year.

Thanks all. Merrytooth, I'm not sure what they listed it under. I tried to call the doctor's billing department today to check, but I kept getting their voicemail.

Umka, I currently work as a substitute in a school so I'm not entitled to any employee benefits. My husband works for a grocery store chain, which I know provides health and dental so he's going to look into that this week. He remembers his boss telling him that it's nothing great though. I knew that you could pay up front and get a discount, but I hadn't expected to pay anything other than the co-pay yesterday. Will have to look into that next time.

Yuna, thanks for that. I've scoured our policy and it doesn't give any hint of how much the office visit would be. I know that it's $50 after the deductible is met, but we haven't met it yet. The doctor I went to is in-network and listed as my PCP on the policy. If I understand you correctly, our insurance might pay for some of the cost of the visit, even though our deductible has not been met? In terms of the inhaler, the doctor asked if I minded having the generic version and I said that it made no difference to me, though I know she was trying to match the prescription with my existing medication from the UK so she might have ended up giving me name-brand.

An expensive lesson!

My husband (USC) came off his parents' health insurance and got his own at the start of this year. Premium of $167.50pp with a deductible of $2000pp. He did this in a sort of blind panic when he had to go down to the office to sort it out because the website (Health Connector) kept throwing up errors. When I married him, I was put on his health insurance. We had a lot of trouble with this, we got married in June and I didn't get put on until the end of August because we kept being told that I'd been put on there when I hadn't been. Basically it's been a huge headache since day 1.

I went to the doctor's office for the first time yesterday. All I needed was a prescription for my asthma pump, which I had run out of. I was given a full first-time patient basic checkup (blood pressure, listened to my lungs etc), but didn't need any blood tests or anything out of the ordinary. I was given a prescription for my inhaler and sent on my way. Went to pick up the prescription, discovered that we hadn't met our deductible so we had to pay out of pocket. $220 for an inhaler. I then started to panic about how much the doctor's office visit is going to cost us (any ideas of a ballpark figure?)

Both my husband and I were really foolish in thinking that the $2000 deductible that he initially had would stay the same when I was added to the insurance. I don't know why we never thought about the fact that it would be doubled with another person added to it. I know, it sounds silly now, but we never even really thought about it.

I was hoping that someone on here could give us some advice about what to do when open enrollment starts again on the 15th. What kind of plan should we be looking for? I'm fairly healthy although I have minor chronic issues (like the asthma) that will likely require at least 1 OV per year and prescriptions throughout the year. Hubby doesn't have any chronic issues. We earn a decent amount combined but we are currently saving like crazy to move out of our apartment next August, so a large monthly premium wouldn't be ideal...but then again I don't really want to fork over $220 every time I need a new inhaler. I don't see how we could ever meet our current combined deductible of $4000 (obviously unless emergency treatment was needed) but there's no way we could afford $800+ per month premiums. I feel so confused over why we've paid our premiums each month and have still had to pay a big chunk of money for basic care. Are we missing something here? We both feel really stupid at the moment

I stayed at the Comfort Inn, Hyde Park. Google maps says it's a half hour walk, but I remember it being much less than that. I also had the option of hopping on the tube and then hopping off 2/3 stops later. I was trying to swing the trip for as cheap as possible, think the room was about £50. Try taking a look on booking.com, that site usually has good prices.

As for train tickets, I always compare thetrainline.com with redspottedhanky.com and see which is the cheapest, though it doesn't usually make much of a difference. Could you do Megabus or National Express? I usually travelled to London via coach which worked out much cheaper.

A fellow VJer in Boston! Hello!

Just checking in to see if there has been any movement with people who get waivers in June...approaching 5 months soon and still nothing.

Hi! Hoping that you hear something soon

hi again

Hello! Looks like we're stuck on the same path

Got our letter today!

Just got our waiver letter in the mail today. Dated Oct 15th. I'm pleased as I didn't really want to do an interview anyway

Still haven't heard anything about AOS. I'm guessing we'll get an interview waiver as our status has always been on acceptance and never changed to interview scheduling. But eh, I have my EAD and AP, I'm working, I have no problem waiting longer for my green card if it means I don't have to trek downtown and take a day off work for the interview

My husband and I have found them to be horrendous. We got married at the end of June, tried to get me put on at the beginning of July and I only got on it at the end of August thanks to their ineptitude. We sorted it out by going down to the office in person, have you tried that?

Congrats for all these approvals!