I am sorry for the late response. It's been a little hectic lately (trying to catch up on work/projects and getting my fiancee signed up for her SSN, etc.)
My fiancee had her vaccinations done first and medical exam the next day. Turn around for medical exam results was 3 days (she had it on Wed but couldn't pick up the results until Monday afternoon). My fiancee lived in Dalat and stayed in Saigon for 5 days. She flew in on Monday morning, had vaccinations done on Tuesday, medical exam on Wed, but since her results weren't ready until the following Monday afternoon, she had to fly back the following week to pick up the results.
Vaccinations are done the same day. Your fiancee should show up at the place as early as possible to get the number (they open at 7AM). It is pretty quick. She should be in and out in about one hour, tops. The quarantine place will give her a yellow piece of paper (vaccinations record) to take to her medical exam.
Going through the K1 process here in Vietnam, there're a few things I thought we could have done differently. If you are in a rush and want to minimize waiting time, read on:
1. Police record number 2:
As soon as you get approval from USCIS, I suggest you start applying for this. It will take 3 weeks or longer to process and you don't need any documents from the embassy to apply for this.
2. NVC:
Two weeks from when your application is transferred from USCIS to NVC, you can start calling NVC to get your HCM number. Call in the morning US time when they just open so you don't have to wait for hours on the phone.
Once you get your HCM, you can check on CEAC website to see when your application leaves NVC for US Embassy in Vietnam.
3. DS-160 and UStravel:
I would argue that once you have your HCM number, you should start submitting DS-160 form and pay the visa fee so that you can see the available interview dates on USTravel website. We didn't pay the visa fee but only rely on the earliest interview date available (29 Oct 2014), which was a mistake because it turned out that other people were taking up all other dates in Nov without us knowing. So now we're stuck with 29 Oct 2014 which is really early for us because we do not have all the documents ready (the police record 2 to be specific). Today they just opened interview dates in Dec but that's too late for us so we will just stick with 29 Oct and see how it goes.
If you want to get the visa asap, keep this in mind because the interview dates get snatched up fast/are limited. There are only about 8 to 10 dates and only about 2 slots available for each date in Dec.
4. Medical exam and vaccination:
After getting your package 3, do your vaccination first at HCM quarantine center even though on the US Embassy website said go to your medical exam first. The medical exam people expect you to have your vaccination first and if not you'll have to come back to the medical exam again to submit the vaccination form.
You can go to the quarantine center the day before and get a queue number so you dont have to wait too long for your turn the next day. I was perplexed at first because I was one of the first tens to get there and I still get a number 79 and had to wait for 3 hours for my turn. If you dont have any record, they will draw blood and do test but we think it's more simple to just get all the shots again beforehand. I started to get my vaccinations about 6 months ago (Hep A&B takes 6-7 months for 3 shots, MMR, Tdap, Varicella).
Once you get the yellow vaccination form, go for the medical exam. Having gone to Cho Ray, I think you should go to IOM. At Cho Ray if you do some additional tests (eyes, ultrasound etc) you will have to go to another department in the hospital, or worse, a clinic outside. In this case you have to compete with all other patients from outside and it's just a long, agonizing wait. If you have had surgery or other hospitalization documents, bring them along as the doctor might need it.
Also at the moment, you have to submit some 3x4 photos but they have to be international 3x4 size, which is bigger than the normal 3x4. Go to the shops in district 1 coz they're more familiar with those sizes.
They can send the medical exam result back to your address so even if you're not from HCMC, you dont have to worry about whether you have allocate enough time to wait in HCMC. I did my exam on Tue, submitted vaccination form on Thu and got the result delivered to my house in HCMC the following Wed. It could take more time if you're from other provinces.
Will post more if there's any thing interesting from my interview. Cheers!
That's most likely the HBV shot. You get 3 shots for HBV which are placed at 1-month and 6-month or so interval. I think she can definitely have the the third shot in America I've read about it on forums.
