Medical exam requirement that goes along with any immigration application that you're filing
specifically as it relates to couples. Our firm is dedicated exclusively to assisting couples.
One of the requirements in your immigration process is that you would receive
or have completed rather a medical exam. For this medical exam, I am only going to discuss
medical exams as they relate to a process called adjustment of status. For those of you who
are new to the immigration process, adjustment of status is a process that is completed
inside of the United States. We have videos and other information about
adjustment of status eligibility and steps. But in general, someone who's completing adjustment of
status is married to a United States citizen and both the immigrant and the petitioner, the United
States citizen, are living in the United States. The entire process for the green card would
happen here in the United States. With that adjustment of status process, there is a medical
exam that is required. We've seen a lot of chatter and a lot of questions in our Facebook group
about how long is the medical exam valid, when should I get the medical exam.
In this video, I would like to discuss the truth about the validity
of the medical exam as it relates to adjustment of status. There's been a lot of people
in our Facebook group, a lot of rumors that say, "I was
told or I read it's only good for 60 days. That the medical exam is only valid for 60 days."
I'd like to quickly go over what the requirements are in terms of medical exam validity and
also what we do here in our office for our clients. Medical exams for adjustment of status
cannot be more than 60 days old at the time that you file for your green card.
That's where the 60 days is coming in. Everybody is talking about that it's only good for 60 days.
The truth is that it can't be more than 60 days old at the time you file your application.
Once you receive your medical exam and it's filed with your application or once your
immigration application is filed and you receive your medical exam, it's valid for two years.
Just to back up and go over that again, I know that's a lot of information, the medical exam
cannot be more than 60 days old at the time you file your application and then it's valid for two
years. What we do for our clients who are going through the adjustment of status process, we
know there's a ton of documents that our clients need to collect. A lot of relationship evidence and
financial evidence that has to be collected. We know the medical exam, once the
client obtains it, it's only good for 60 days. What we do is we tell our clients to wait on getting
the medical exam. Or if we know they happen to live in a state where it's a bit of a longer wait
to get the medical exam, we'll have them go ahead and schedule it but we make sure that
when we file the application, that the medical exam is not more than
60 days old. But we always make sure that we are working with the client to get the application
filed first, not get the medical exam first because we do only have that 60-day window.
Often what we do is we will just file the application without the medical exam. You
don't actually have to file your application with that medical exam. You can take it to the interview
What we prefer to do with our clients is work on getting your relationship evidence
work on getting the financial evidence, prepare your adjustment of application. If you're able to
get a medical exam quickly, then you'll go ahead and get it. We can send it with the application
But if not, let's not hold things up. We go ahead and send the application when the medical exam
is completed. The client will hang on to it. It's in a sealed envelope that shouldn't be opened
and then you'll receive a notice from immigration called a deficiency notice. It's not a bad thing
and immigration knows you might decide, let's go ahead and send it and bring it to the interview.
And then, immigration will either have you mail it in separately or typically what happens, since I'm
discussing an adjustment of status for couples is you will take that medical exam with you
to the interview. A good rule of thumb is, I know you're excited and you're wanting to get all your
documents collected and get that medical exam, but make sure that your application is 100% ready to
send. Then work on the medical exam, knowing you can either take it with you later
to the interview or send it in later but that's not a required component to be able to send the
application. Again, once that medical exam is completed, it's valid for two years.
Sometimes officers could decide that they want you to have
another medical exam even if it's not more than two years old.
That's unlikely. What we see is that clients take their medical exam to the interview
the officer asks for it, we give them the medical exam, and everything is fine on that front
because it's valid for two years. There's an old rule from about 2018 that used to say the
medical exam was only good for a year but that's been changed to two years. That's the truth
That's where the 60 days is coming from but it's two years once it's filed. Hopefully
that helped clear up those rumors and that all makes sense. I'll post the USCIS
policy manual language below this video so you can see exactly what I am seeing,
what the law is, what the policy is, so you can have that for your reference. I hope that helped.