Privacy Policy
This privacy policy is to provide information to you, our patient, on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties.
When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for doctors and practice staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.
Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes.
What personal information do we collect?
The information we will collect about you includes your:
Name, date of birth, address, contact details
Medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
Medicare number (where available)
Healthcare identifiers
Health fund details
How do we collect your personal information?
Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways.
When you make your first appointment our practice staff will collect your personal and demographic information.
When providing medical services.
We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email, SMS or call us.
In some circumstances, we may collect information from your guardian or responsible person, other healthcare providers, your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Sharing information
We sometimes share your personal information:
with third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with this policy
with other healthcare providers
when it is required or authorised by law (eg court subpoenas)
when it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent
to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim
for the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process
when there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (eg some diseases require mandatory notification)
during the course of providing medical services, through eTP, My Health Record.
Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Our practice will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent. If you do consent, you may opt out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing. Our practice may use your personal information to improve the quality of the services we offer to our patients through research and analysis of our patient data.
Storing Information
Your personal information may be stored at our practice in various forms, these include but are not limited to:
Electronic records
Paper records
Visual records (such as Ultrasound scans)
Our practice stores all personal information securely. We may hold your personal information in a number of ways including electronically and in physical format.
Accessing your information
You have the right to request access to, and correction of, your personal information.
Our practice acknowledges patients may request access to their medical records. We require you to put this request in writing and our practice will respond within a reasonable time. Our practice will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate or up to date. From time to time, we will ask you to verify that your personal information held by our practice is correct and current. You may also request that we correct or update your information, and you should make such requests in writing.