Current as of : November 2019

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.

Consent

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.

Why do we collect, use hold and share your personal information?

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, concessin card details
• contact details including mobile number and emails.

How do we collect your information?

• 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.

Use and Disclosure

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 chare certain health information (eg.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.

Data Quality and Security

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

Corrections

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).

Access

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.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information, we request that you contact us in writing. Upon receipt of a complaint we will consider the details and attempt to resolve it in accordance with our complaints handling procedures.

If you are dissatisfied with our handling of a complaint or the outcome you may make an application to the Australian Information Commissioner,  webpage : www.oiac.gov.au
Email : enquiries@oiac.gov.au
Phone :  1300 363 992

Contact

Please direct any queries, complaints, requests for access to medical records by phone or mail.

Shop 4
46 Walker Street
Rhodes NSW 2138

Phone: (02) 9743 1760
Fax: (02) 9743 0805

Overseas Transfer of Data

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.