How to "front load" medicals

Cam_Russ · 03-10-2007, 03:55 PM

Having just spent the last hour trawling the immi.gov.au site I am confused about the medical part of the application. It says on the site that you should not arrange a medical before requested to do so by the department, however, I keep seeing that folk on here have front loaded their medicals to speed up the process.

Is it ok to do this?? And if so, do you need to do the X-ray before you see the panel doctor, or the other way round.....

We really want to send in the medicals when we lodge the app so it speeds it up.... Advice gratefully accepted....

(visa type interdependency visa 310/110)

Cheers

Cam and Russ

alfixie · 03-10-2007, 04:14 PM

Hi,

We had our meds and xrays done in the same place and had the xrays first, we had our meds done on the 3rd Aug and got our acknowledgment on the 6th Sept with a case file number, we then gave this case file no to the panel doctor and he sent them off. Now when we get our case officer and she asks for this to be done hopefully she has it all at her desk.

Good luck in whatever path you choose.

All the best,

Marina.

Susie_x_Chris · 03-10-2007, 04:51 PM

Hi Cam and Russ,

We did our medicals 4 months from when we sent off the visa. We did this based on timings that we had observed in this forum, thinking it would allow us enough time to get a case officer, get the visa and go within the year. The one thing we did wait for (and had to reschedule our meds once because of the wait) was our file reference number. There has been talk of some meds going into a black hole, and we at least wanted some kind of reference back to our original application. There is currently a backlog at LCU in Sydney, where they process the meds, so I suggest that it coud be better to get them done to mitigate some of this delay. As luck had it, we were assigned a case officer the week after we had the meds done, so we let her know as soon as they arrived in Sydney in the hope that she might be able to pluck our meds from the black hole.

So for us, so far, frontloading but with a slight delay has worked. You just need to understand that you do run the risk, if it takes too long to get a case officer, that you may need to re-do the meds, as they only last for a year.

Re the x-ray, we were told by 2 different clinics that the x-rays had to happen first. The clinic we used did everything, but if you live in an area where you have to go to two separate places for your x-rays and meds, then book x-rays first. For some places, they say you need as much as 2 weeks between them to allow time for the x-ray to be processed. It doesn't need to take this long, so ring around if this is too inconvenient for you and you would rather get it all done in one day.

Hope this helps,
Susie

Gollywobbler · 03-10-2007, 06:27 PM

Hi Cam & Russ

Presumably you will lodge your visa application at the Australian High Commission in London?

They actively encourage pople to frontload the meds with this particular visa so as to save the applicants' time and themselves work. The details are here:

Visas and migration - Australian High Commission

I've given you a wider link than you need for your meds because a lot of the stuff on the AHC site is useful as well, I reckon.

Cheers

Gill