US Immigration from Canada

I want to update everyone with my experience having my medical with Dr. Ian Zatzman today. As soon as I found out my interview last week, I scheduled an appointment with his office. My appointment was scheduled for 1115, I arrived at the parking lot around 1045. They have their own parking lot, but I took one look and decided to park on the street. The office building is located in the suburbs so there is unlimited street parking available. I arrived at his second-floor office around 1055 and was told to sit in the relatively small waiting room and was called up at exactly 1115 by one of the office administrator.

They requested my passport (the website said photo ID, but I brought my passport anyway), my interview appointment letter from the NVC (e-mail from NVC) and my vaccination record. I gave them my vaccination records, but in the end, they only wanted this one (from Dr. Mascarenhas' website, which I had signed by my family physician last month) and didn't even look at my provincial records. They didn't care whether I had one or two MMR shots, they just took a photocopy of my most recent vaccination shots based on Dr. Mascarenhas' form. They did not request for any passport photos. It was explained to me that the Montreal consulate is moving towards a digital platform and uses a platform called "e-medical" and so they took a picture of me in the office and uploaded it onto their server. (Note: on their website, it says that this is only for people who are applying for CR1/IR1 visas. You may need to bring your passport photos if you are applying for other visas (ie K1 visa, etc)). Following this, I paid in cash (they accepted debit as well) and sat back down to wait for my appointment. Screening the room, there were two other patients before me waiting for their visa medicals.

I was called to see Dr. Zatzman around 1200. The medical took about 15 minutes, and as Dr. Zatzman describes it, it was the easiest part of the immigration process. He took a history (past medical history, medications, sexual history and substance use history), then performed a limited, non-invasive exam. He then went through my vaccination sheet ( just the one page from Dr. Mascarenhas' website). The whole process took about 8 minutes and we spent the rest of the time having an academic discussion on influenza and coronavirus.

Before I left, I asked Dr. Zatzman for his advice on how to speed up the lab/x-ray process. He advised me to submit my blood work requisition first, checked the monitor in the waiting room to see how long the wait time was, then submit my x-ray requisition if it was longer than 10 minutes.

As advised, I went to the Dynacare laboratory on the main floor and submitted my requisition at 1220. I saw that my wait time was approximately 30 minutes so I went to the X-ray Associates facility on the main floor and submitted my x-ray requisition. Both facilities take credit card (except AmEx). There was not a lot of people waiting for x-rays so I waited around and had my x-ray 15 minutes later. I had a single-view, PA x-ray, took a quick glimpse, and headed back to the Dynacare laboratory where I was called in shortly after to have blood drawn and to provide a urine sample. For those who are interested, the blood work was for syphilis and the urine was for chlamydia and gonorrhea. I was finished by 1305. Because I submitted both blood work and x-ray requisitions at around the same time, I was done before the two people before me.

Total time from appointment to completion: 1h50m. I was told that my results will typically take 5-8 business days, but they will call me as soon as my paperwork is completed.

Cost breakdown:

1. Medical with Dr. Zatzman: $260 CAD (paid in cash, also accepts debit card)
2. X-ray with X-ray Associates: $70 CAD (paid by credit card with no extra fees, also accepts cash and debit card)
3. Blood and urine test with Dynacare Laboratory: $30.34 CAD (paid by credit card with no extra fees, also accepts cash and debit card)

I will update this thread when I receive the call for the medical results.

Cheers