Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I'd be interested to know of anyone who decided to undertake their medical before being allocated a case officer. Hubby and I have an EOI lodged and hope to be invited on 1 April. There are no doctors on the DIAC panel list based where we live which means flying to the UK so we would like to book it as soon as we are invited which may mean it will be completed before being allocated a case officer. DIAC Advice is not to book the medical before being allocated a case officer but I am aware many people ignore this advice. I would be interested to know of anyone who is done this and any issues they might have had not. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeboard1980 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 I wouldn't do it especially if you have to fly to the UK to do it. Why not wait until the CO requests it! What happens if you get it done that early and you don't get a CO for a while? Ar you ready to move as soon as your visa gets granted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 No but you have a year from PCC or medical to validate and we are applying for a 189 which are taking about 6-10 weeks for case officer. Also our case is straight forward. Trouble is flights to UK can be £500 min and over £1000 if we leave it till last minute to book. I thought lots of people do decide to undertake their medical before they are told by their case officer and am interested in hearing whether it was ok and if it moved their case along more quickly. I would have thought that if a case officer picks up your case and everything is front loaded it means they can approve it there and then rather than requesting you to do the medical and putting you back in the pile for review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeboard1980 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 No but you have a year from PCC or medical to validate and we are applying for a 189 which are taking about 6-10 weeks for case officer. Also our case is straight forward. Trouble is flights to UK can be £500 min and over £1000 if we leave it till last minute to book. I thought lots of people do decide to undertake their medical before they are told by their case officer and am interested in hearing whether it was ok and if it moved their case along more quickly. I would have thought that if a case officer picks up your case and everything is front loaded it means they can approve it there and then rather than requesting you to do the medical and putting you back in the pile for review. Where are you flying to the UK from? How long is it taking for the visa to be granted once you have a CO? That is the important number, not so much how long it takes to get a CO. if you front load will you be in a position to go and validate if say your meds are 10-11 months old by then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 Flying from Channel Islands. 189 visas are being approved relatively quickly and yep we would jump at the opportunity to go down and validate our visas in October when my SIL is getting married. At he moment we feel we can't book flights for her wedding as we don't know what stage we will be in the migration process. We need to sell our house (preferably) or rent it and are getting it ready to market at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeboard1980 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 Flying from Channel Islands. 189 visas are being approved relatively quickly and yep we would jump at the opportunity to go down and validate our visas in October when my SIL is getting married. At he moment we feel we can't book flights for her wedding as we don't know what stage we will be in the migration process. We need to sell our house (preferably) or rent it and are getting it ready to market at the moment. I would book the flights for the wedding if you are going regardless. How long is relatively quickly? Because if you are waiting for the invite, then have to wait or a co then have to wait or the visa, how long would that take? If that's definitely going to be done before the wedding then I would do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakeboard1980 Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 http://www.immi.gov.au/about/charters/client-services-charter/visas/8.0.htm this is saying 12 months to process if I'm reading it right. Anyway, hopefully someone that is going through the process will be along soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 They're not taking 12 months. More like 6 months from deciding to go for it, taking ielts, getting skills assessed, logging EOI, being invited and having visa approved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjbchris Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 There's mixed feeling on this one... I held back a while, but finally took the plunge and booked ours yesterday... and today noted on the portal that the status had changed to "requested".. despite no email from a CO... In your case... wouldn't you be better waiting till your EOI was accepted...??? and then book immediately if you decide to frontload??... or is that just me being overly cautious?? Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicF Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 Can you even have a medical before you get a case officer? Genuine question that I don't know the answer to. With the partner visa you can't do the medical until you have a case officer because the results are submitted electronically and you need a number that the CO gives you when they ask you to get them done. However the partner visa is submitted on paper so I don't know if it's different for visa applied for online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 Hi Chris. We aren't intending to book our medical before our EOI has been accepted but are hopeful we will receive an invite on Monday. Just I'm sure I've seen lots of forum users mention they front loaded their Medicals and was interested to hear from those who did or didn't. I think we might book ours around availability and prices of flights to the UK and take the opportunity to go and see my folks there. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 NicF I have no idea so interested to hear from those who might know. I understand you have to have some sort of reference number before you can book but not sure if this is the number you are electronically allocated once you lodge your visa application on line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjbchris Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 Can you even have a medical before you get a case officer? Genuine question that I don't know the answer to. With the partner visa you can't do the medical until you have a case officer because the results are submitted electronically and you need a number that the CO gives you when they ask you to get them done. However the partner visa is submitted on paper so I don't know if it's different for visa applied for online. Good Point... the Medical people require the TRA number that is given to you when you receive your invite to apply... without that I don't think you can have them done. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 29, 2013 Author Share Posted March 29, 2013 I think you get your TRN when you lodge your visa online although at that point you may still not have a case officer ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Hot Chili Pipers Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 Hi I am also curious if we can have our medicals done before having CO. We lodged our visa last night but were not given a different number, so can we apply for medicals with the number we were already given when invited will that be our TRN number? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjbchris Posted March 29, 2013 Share Posted March 29, 2013 Try this... if you think you have a TRN number, then phone whoever you intend to book the medical with... They can then look up if you are on the system or not.... Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted March 30, 2013 Author Share Posted March 30, 2013 Just seen on Feb 189 thread lots front loading their meds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ali Posted March 31, 2013 Share Posted March 31, 2013 You're right that people do take the chance to front load medicals although reading the boards this is probably less popular than it used to be as the medicals only last for 12 months and the delays in visa grants meant that people were left with either a very short validation time of a few months or they'd expired and they had to resubmit. That's the chance you take. As for speeding up the process - it will be the weeks it would take you to organise and complete them when requested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurvyy Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 That's correct. A lot of people are front loading their medicals which means they will get the visa grant straight away. I would suggest you wait for your invitation and submit your application. Once you've submitted, on the online portal eVisa, there is a link called "organise your health examinations". This link will direct you to either download your health examination form or to select health clinics at which your examination can be recorded electronically and submitted to the department. All your details are already on hand on the forms. http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/estimated-allocation-times.htm From the link above: Having your application ready for finalisation at this pre-allocation stage, may expedite a decision. The link even suggests to undertake your medicals and character clearances when your case is nearing allocation. At the moment, allocation is within 10 weeks of lodgement. In my case, Thursday will be 7 weeks since i applied for 189 with 70 points. The portal shows all my docs as "received" except Medicals "recommended". Other people on the forum had medicals as "required". The only reason i have not done them yet is i'm hoping i will not be asked for one since I have spent the last 7yrs in Melbourne. Hope this helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauracoldwell Posted April 1, 2013 Share Posted April 1, 2013 Hi Lou, I can only give you my experience of things. I front end loaded my application and my visa was approved within 2 weeks. However just after booking, our CO was allocated so we had a CO the day before the medicals. I also booked my flights just after my SS came through. Its up to you and you have to do whatever you think. I know you can never anticipate health problems and even though me and my husband are healthy I am classed as overweight and so i wanted to do them ASAP (as soon as I got the TRN number) just incase we encountered any problems. They way I looked at it was that we had come so far we were going to have to do them anyway. If you want a grant ASAP i think it makes sense just to do them. Again thats just my opinion and experience. Good Luck xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lou8670 Posted April 1, 2013 Author Share Posted April 1, 2013 Thanks Laura and kurvyy. That's really helpful. We have just been through the visa application online (all 17 pages) having been invited yesterday afternoon (UK time). I'll check out the Medicals bit when we get to it which I assume is after we have lodged and paid the fee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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