Can I pass my medical exam if I am on prescription medication? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer, practicing law throughout the United States out of our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. Today's question comes from Shawna, and Shawna is asking about a friend of hers. The friend suffers from fibromyalgia, which I think is sort of a pain in your joints, a syndrome or symptoms that can cause you to really be disabled in a lot of ways. It can really be very painful. And so Shawna's friend is on pain medication, and she's wondering if that will preclude her, or prevent her friend from being able to pass the medical exam related to adjustment of status. So any time you are applying for a green card, you're going to have to have an I-693, which is a medical exam form completed by a civil surgeon.
So the government has doctors who signed up for this program and they administer these physical exams. They check you out for tuberculosis, they check your prescription history, they check your vaccination history. Shawna, I think your friend should be fine. If you have a doctor's note, or doctor's records, or if you can prove up why the person's on the pain medication, that's going to go a long way. Now if the doctor concludes that the person's a drug addict, that's going to be a whole different thing. So I think the key to the whole question is whether or not a doctor has prescribed it for an actual condition, and if the symptoms and the treatment make sense medically, then the civil surgeon should authorize it. I think they'd have a problem under the Americans with Disabilities Act if they didn't.
But generally, you just got to play it straight. You got to make sure that your friend's on these pain medications for the right reasons. If you suspect chemical abuse or if the doctor suspects it, it might make it harder for them to get the case approved. So that's just something to think through with your friend, Shawna. You want to make sure that it's medically necessary medicine, and then you're going to want to bring proof of that condition and proof of the treatment to the civil surgeon's office when your friend does their physical exam.
We hope this helps. If you have any questions about the I-693, or working with a civil surgeon, or getting your adjustment status case approved, be sure to give us a call at 314-961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home. And if you liked this video, please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and share it out on social whenever you can. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
