All right, everyone, welcome back to Urgent Care Unscripted. I'm Barbara, an alternate director of operations at AFC Urgent Care in West Haven. Hi. And this is Mohamed Salah. And I'm the franchisee of Urgent care in West Haven. Today we are here to talk about immigration, physical and how important it is and what role does it play in the overall immigration process.
Joining us today we have Kara Hart, a seasoned immigration lawyer who has been practicing in Connecticut for over 20 years with a deep commitment to helping families immigrate, basically navigate through the U.S. immigration system. Kara specializes in family based immigration. Guiding her clients through sponsorship. All the way through U.S. citizenship. Welcome, Kara. We also today have Doctor Felix today. He's our medical director, and he is also our USCIS designated civil surgeon.
Welcome, doctor. Felix. Thank you. Happy to be here. I look forward to answering some common clinical questions regarding the immigration system. Awesome. Let's start with the basics. At what point in the immigration process should applicants complete their immigration physicals? Kara. I'm a civil servant. Can easily be found online via the, USCIS search option. And basically a civil surgeon, an experienced physician, at least four years down the Goshen application process.
And we are, designated the responsibility to complete the Isaac's name to, to ensure that an immigrant is, medically able to, enter the United States or remain in the United States. Awesome. And, question for, Kara, when the process starts, how does the actual application of the Isaac's entry form happen? What does the applicant do at that point? At AFC Urgent Care, we have designated immigration process to be smooth and straightforward for applicant.
So, doctor Felix, can you explain to us what kind of tests we do during these applications? So we first consider what the immigration physical is supposed to do. In general, it protects the US population from infectious, contagious disease. So a good part of it has to do with, you know, building those out, making sure the individual has the appropriate vaccinations. And does it have signs? Let's see, I uses, syphilis and such. That information is, very easily, available on the USGS website.
They can see all the requirements in terms of vaccinations, you know, seasonal flu vaccination requires. Covid is no longer required. But several vaccinations, depending on your age and screening for packets for two doses can be a syphilis, depending on your age. As well as a physical exam to ensure there's no signs of active illness. Are there any recent changes in the policy of immigration that. Cara, you can elaborate to us about.
Change in. Senator Felix, I have a question for you in regarding to the application, you've mentioned that patients do require to get some vaccines done. What happens if they don't have those records? So we can do a medical screening for titers, actually do lab tests to test whether or not you have sufficient antibodies that will be done in the room. And if they aren't, you, getting those vaccinations would not be required. You know, oftentimes people come from other countries and,
you know, records are incomplete. You, which sometimes in a different language. And it's important to do an English translation of records because the, so we're searching for the authors should be responsible for understanding what the, origin vaccinations are. Barbara, from Francis perspective, we often hear, clients or patients coming in for the patient physical, and they're in a rush because they have come to us in the last minute.
Yes. And, although the process could take 3 to 4 weeks now, they want to do that as soon as possible. What kind of, patients do to make the process really go as fast as possible? How can they prepare themselves and help make the process faster? Absolutely. So making sure you have all of your medical records ahead of time is a great way to speed that process. Unfortunately, that can't be true for every single patient.
So what we do have, to do it at the clinic, like Doctor Felix said, is we have to do the titers for the patient. So there are some blood works that just take longer. And if you want to eliminate that, we can always give the patients a booster vaccine just to make sure that they are up to date with their vaccines.
As long as the medical provider, Doctor Felix in this case is an agree agreed with, that And then there are the also, places where people go for immigration, physical that do not always have an English, immigration physical surgeon on site. Those, in, concern for people who are applying Well, the USCIS website lists the civil surgeons. You have to make sure they actually be seen by who search of record. That would be a problem both for the applicant and for the civil surgeon.
There's an annual certification, you know, checking process. So the substance of the sign, the paperwork, that signature has to be the civil search is not someone else's. And, you know, there could be other issues down the line, but in general, want to make sure that the person signing an exam is the actual signature. I think Kara, for, also for this episode, you had some, final, points that you wanted, all of our listeners to, be careful about. And be mindful of as they go through the process.
If you want to expand on your, summary piece. That's great. And just with that, would you advise, people that are eligible to apply right away? How long does the process typically take? From start to finish? One thing I would add is the process, for the immigration physical, can be fairly quick. That would require at least two visits. One, because a quantum field test, which is a blood test for tuberculosis, has to be done on every patient.
And that would require a wait time to get those results. And then the subsequent visit, after for the description and to ensure that there's not being, positive on that testing. And if it were positive, give me a chest X-ray done as well. So it's always at least two visits for the patient is good. But that can be, you know, the second visit could potentially be, some days. So we apart. is it important for the patients or your clients doctor care.
Scary to provide all documentation for their applications. Right away. Or should they kind of gather that as, as they go through the application process? You need to. This has been so valuable, and I'm sure our patients would really appreciate, us going through that immigration process for them. And thank you for, all thank you, Karen, and thank you all to our viewers for watching this episode.
We welcome you to Urgent Care Unscripted, and please subscribe and look forward to our next episode coming soon. And if you have any questions, feel free to send us those questions. You can email us at West Haven team at AFC Urgent care.com. And you can also come visit us at 350 for Sawmill Road in West Haven. Like we mentioned before, we do immigration physicals here and you can get it done starting today. So there's no need to wait with us. Thank you. Take care of us.