Policy
-
Upon making an appointment, you are agreeing to abide by our cancellation policy.
We request you provide 1 hour notice for any cancellations, to allow availability of appointments for others.Arrivals later than 15mins of the booked time will result in inconvenience to others and we may not be able to tell you when you may be seen.
In the event you are running late, please inform reception of your situation. Please be aware that other booked appointments who arrive on time will be given priority, and delays will occur.
Non attendance will incur a $50 fee and will be payable before your next appointment.
-
Medical certificates are legal documents and are issued only when you consult with the doctor.
Please arrange an appointment to obtain a referral prior to presenting to your specialist appointment. Referrals will only be issued in consultation, to ensure adequate information is included in the referral.
Medical certificates and referrals cannot be issued retrospectively or be backdated.
-
For results, it is preferred that you make a routine follow up appointment within 1-2 days for blood tests results and 2-3 days for imaging results.
We may contact you by SMS recall system regarding your results, only if deemed necessary. If so, please make a follow up appointment, otherwise, keep the appointment you have.
Reception staff cannot discuss or give out results, your enquiry will be redirected to a clinical staff member to action.
Results may be added to your MyGov Health Record. See what’s inside your My Health Record.
-
SMS reminders are usually sent for appointments made more than 24 hours before the appointment.
You may cancel the appointment by replying N or confirm with Y.
-
It is our policy to ensure your confidentiality and protect your privacy. We will not allow unauthorised access to your medical records and our computers are password protected. Should you require access to your records or other information, we require a signed consent from the authorised person.
Privacy
We are committed to protecting the privacy of patient information and to handling your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012, the Australian Privacy Principles and relevant State and Territory privacy legislation (referred to as privacy legislation).
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and disclose your personal information, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how you may make a complaint about a breach of privacy legislation.
-
When you register with our clinic, you provide consent to allow clinic staff and doctors access to your personal information in order to provide you with the best possible healthcare. Your health information is accessed only by those with authority to do so.
-
We collect information that is necessary and relevant to provide you with medical care and treatment, and manage our medical practice.
This information may include your:
name, address, date of birth, gender
health information, family history, medications, allergies, immunisations
Medicare number, concession card details
contact details including mobile number and email
-
We will collect information from you personally, for example, when you fill in the new patient registration form.
We may also need to collect information from other sources such as treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals and other health care providers.
We collect information in various ways, such as over the phone or in writing, in person in our practice or over the internet if you transact with us online. This information may be collected by medical and non-medical staff.
In emergency situations we may also need to collect information from your relatives or friends.
We may be required by law to retain medical records for certain periods of time depending on your age at the time we provide services.
-
We will treat your personal information as strictly private and confidential. We will only use or disclose it for purposes directly related to your care and treatment, or in ways that you would reasonably expect that we may use it for your ongoing care and treatment.
The following are situations where we may disclose your information :
With other healthcare providers eg. the disclosure of blood test results to your specialist or requests for x-rays.
When providing medical services through government My Health Record (eg. health summary, event summary).
We may disclose your information where there is a statutory requirement to share certain health information (e.g. mandatory notification)
When permitted or required by law to disclose your personal information to third parties. For example, to Medicare, Police, insurers, solicitors, government regulatory bodies, tribunals, courts of law (eg. subpoenas), hospitals, or debt collection agents.
When you are no longer able to act on your own behalf, and we need to discuss your health with your emergency contact
We may also from time to time provide statistical data to third parties for research purposes.
We impose security and confidentiality requirements on how they handle your personal information.
Outside contractors are required not to use information about you for any purpose except for those activities we have asked them to perform.
-
We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, compete, up to date and relevant. For this purpose our staff may ask you to confirm that your contact details are correct when you attend a consultation. We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.
Personal information that we hold is protected by:
securing our premises;
placing passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access and protect electronic information from unauthorised interference, access, modification and disclosure;
staff sign a privacy and confidentialty agreement as part of their work contract
-
If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, we ask that you contact us in writing (see details below).
-
You are entitled to request access to your medical records. We request that you put your request in writing and we will respond to it within a reasonable time.
There may be a fee for the administrative costs of retrieving and providing you with copies of your medical records.
We may deny access to your medical records in certain circumstances permitted by law, for example, if disclosure may cause a serious threat to your health or safety. We will always tell you why access is denied and the options you have to respond to our decision.
-
We will not transfer your personal information to an overseas recipient unless we have your consent or we are required to do so by law.
Communication Policy
Our aim is to facilitate effective communication between the practice and our patients.
This is to ensure:
1. You can contact the practice when you need to.
2. You can make appointments and receive other information in a timely manner.
3. Urgent enquiries are dealt with in a timely and medically appropriate way.
-
It is important for us to protect your privacy. Therefore, you may be asked approved patient identifiers such as:
Family and given names
Date of Birth
Address
Gender
-
Our receptionist will contactable during business hours 8.30-5.30, but the phones may be switched to lunch mode for 30minutes during lunch break.
When you are unable to reach the receptionist, we have an online booking system to facilitate making appointments online. This platform is securely managed by a third party Automed system. The affiliated app – AMS Connect App will also enable you to make, cancel and change your appointment as well as check in on arrival.
The practice has adopted a telephone tool called caller ID, which is integrated with the practice appointment software. Using the phone number the call is made from, the tool can identify the caller, and bring up data listed with that number, including your name and appointment history details.
Your call is important to us, and we understand the nature of all calls are not the same. We ask you select from phone options by selecting option 1 for appointments or option for 2 general enquiries.
Receptionist use a triage guide to determine which calls are urgent or an emergency before placing the call on hold. At times, they may seek further information from you to determine the best course of action. If your call is of clinical nature, a message will be taken for our practice nurse or clinical team to answer your enquiry.
In non urgent situations, requests to speak with the doctor will not be generally put through at the time of the call. A message will be taken and sent to the doctor via the integrated practice management software. The doctor will return the call when time permits or when rostered to work.
-
It is a legislative requirement for health practitioners eligible to claim telehealth items for patients:
with an existing relationship
who’ve visited the practice for a face-to –face service in the last 12 months
Some exemptions to this rule if a patient is:
in isolation or quarantine for COVID-19 due to a state or territory public health order
experiencing homelessness
under 12 months of age
needing mental health support
For the full list of exemptions see https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/who-can-claim-telehealth-services-under-mbs-or-dva?context=20
-
Using email to communicate with the practice is NOT a secure form of communication. Whilst we make every effort to handle your personal information carfefully, patients need to be aware of the risks associated with electronic communication such as the information being accessed by someone other than the intended recepient.
To contact the practice by email, please use reception.rfp@gmail.com. By sending a email, consent is implied for the practice to reply.
Emails are received by the reception team and your message will be triaged to the relevant clinical team member. Emails are checked throughout the day, but are not constantly monitored. We endeavour to reply to email messages within 1-3 business days. We urge you contact the clinic by phone for urgent matters instead.
The practice uses an integrated platform within the software to generate an encrypted email to send you e-prescriptions, referral letters and results. Please do not reply to this email address, as it is not monitored.
-
Integrated within the online booking system software, the practice will use SMS messages for health management contact.
These may include:
Appointment reminders
Recalls on results
Reminders for health checks
Health promotion messages from time to time.
You may opt out of any one or all of these by contacting the reception team.
-
Letters or faxes received by the clinic are reviewed and actioned by the clinical team and then stored in the patient record.