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my parent (66) needs urgent, medium term (several months) of care for prostate cancer. He lives abroad, but I would like to bring him to the states, California specifically. I have many questions on this process, but would love to know where to start. Two preliminary ones:

  1. How do I go about organising this with the institution to take him to? Who / How do I get in touch with a hospital (Stanford, UCLA ...) and then plan his care so that he can be seen as soon as possible after we land? Is there a patient care coordinator or other such role who would make this happen?

  2. How do I handle the financial portion of this? My dad is uninsured in the States, and being a foreigner (B2 visa), I don't know what kind of help (charity or otherwise) he can access. Is there a way to find this out or make arrangements beforehand? Specifically, we are OK getting on some kind of payment plan, but upfront the costs would be completely unaffordable.

We will be applying for a Green Card (child -> parent sponsorship) soon for my dad, and I would like to know if this process to affect his eligibility for the green card.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and answers.

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  • To clarify, does your parent already have a B2 visa or is the intention to apply for a visa for medical treatment? Is the treatment needed unavailable in your parent’s country of residence? AFAIK help with healthcare costs for uninsured visitors is not likely to be available see eg visaguide.world/international-health-insurance/us/…
    – Traveller
    Commented Oct 5, 2023 at 22:06
  • Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid) is available to low-income people over 50 regardless of immigration status. (Starting 2024 it will be expanded to all ages.) However, this is only supposed to be for California residents, and I don't know if a visitor can be considered a resident.
    – user102008
    Commented Oct 7, 2023 at 16:45
  • Covered California (California's ACA marketplace) is available to people in nonimmigrant status, which presumably would include visitors. It is not specifically mentioned, but I can't find anywhere where it is specifically barred either.
    – user102008
    Commented Oct 7, 2023 at 16:50
  • @user102008 Covered Califronia (and all other ACA marketplaces) are for residents only - it says so in the title of that page ("immigrants"). non-immigrant status refers to people on long term visas (as explicitly mentioned in that link), etc. Tourists (and undocumented/illegal immigrants) do not qualify. Note that here all the non-immigrant statuses except for those explicitly called out require EAD.
    – littleadv
    Commented Oct 7, 2023 at 18:01
  • @littleadv: It says "Valid non-immigrant visas begin with the letters A through V", which would include B visitors. The EAD is clearly optional, since the EAD is also listed for J1, H1b, F2, etc. which don't have EAD.
    – user102008
    Commented Oct 8, 2023 at 3:21

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I've looked into it briefly for similar circumstances.

  • Visa: B2 visa is fine for such a scenario.

  • Costs: you'll need to pay those. If their local (home) insurance won't cover treatment in the US, then it's on you. You may want to look for some charities who'd be able to help (more likely back home than in the US), but it won't be easy. Another option is to look for clinical trials - those will cover, often times, the trial-related expenses. You'll still need to cover what's not trial related. This is not cheap, at all. Medical care costs in the US are extremely inflated compared to the rest of the world.

  • Hospitals and doctors - if you don't know anyone, I suggest starting with the doctor back home. They might have connections, or know about some potential research/trials. Also look here. You need to get in touch with wherever you want to have the treatment and ask them what they need. They'll need documents, and maybe even samples, from the current hospital (back home). You'll need to figure out how to arrange those.

  • Transportation and accommodations - if the person cannot easily travel anymore, you'll need to figure out how to get them to the US. Regular airlines do not allow sick people onboard, and a cancer patient may not be capable of traveling (especially if the chemo/radiation treatment is ongoing). If the hospital you end up choosing is not near your home, you'll need to find a place to stay near the hospital. Some hospitals have hotels for families, others don't, something to investigate. If the treatment is long and doesn't require hospitalization (e.g.: a series of chemo rounds), then you'll need adequate accommodations for the patient, and you or someone else helping them out in their day-to-day routine.

  • Green card process: the benefit of the green card is that the person can then get a local insurance policy which will cover pre-existing conditions. But it takes months, if not years, for the process to go through. Cancer history has no bearing on the green card, but if your intent is to get local insurance - you need to consider the time it'd take to get it and how it would affect the patient's situation.

Bottom line, visas is the least of your concerns here.

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