Filing Form 8379 will not stop a refund that is ready to be issued. A better question is, are they really going to send your refund if your spouse has an outstanding debt and you have not filed Form 8379?
It does take a while for the IRS to process this form because the form needs to be processed manually by an IRS employee, who checks your allocations before approving the refund.
As @Cynthiad66 pointed out, you should file Form 8379 as soon as you realize that part of your refund may be used to pay your spouse's debts.
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