I received a NOID asking for an I-693 Medical Exam. What should I do?

If you are applying for a green card through Adjustment of Status process with USCIS, you will need to submit a Completed I-693 Medical Examination in a sealed envelope with your green card application.

Many adjustment of status applicants prefer not to submit the medical examination with the initial I-485 application as the Medical Exam has a limited validity (Recently, the validity was extended to 4 years because of Covid, but prior to that the validity was only 2 years). This means that if your adjustment of status petition was pending for more than 2 years, you would then need to submit a new medical exam (and pay a new fee to the civil surgeon).

Usually, USCIS issues a Request for Evidence in which they ask applicants to submit a completed medical exam. If you receive an RFE, you would generally have 3 months to respond.

Recently, we have seen a trend of some USCIS offices to issue a Notice of Intent to Deny (“NOID”) (instead of RFE) in which they ask the applicant to submit a completed medical exam. Receiving a NOID can be stressful for applicants as they may think USCIS is going to deny their application, but if the completed medical exam is the only thing the NOID is asking for, there is generally nothing to worry about. One thing to keep in mind is that you have only 30 days (or 33 days if NOID was received by mail), so you have much shorter period of time to respond. Some USCIS offices actually issue the NOID for the medical exam instead of the RFE so they receive the medical exam back faster, and can complete adjudication of the case faster.