Privacy Policy

Our practice is committed to best practice in relation to the management of information we collect. This practice has developed a policy to protect patient privacy in compliance with privacy legislation.

Our policy is to inform you of:

the kinds of personal information that we collect and hold; how we collect and hold personal information; the purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information;
how you may access your personal information and seek the correction of that information;  how you may complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with such a complaint; whether we are likely to disclose personal information to overseas recipients;

The type of information we may collect and hold includes personal information about:

• Your name, address, date of birth, email and contact details
• Medicare number
• Your health information and other sensitive information

We will generally collect personal information:

• from you directly when you provide your details to us;
• from a person responsible for you
• from third parties where the Privacy Act or other law allows it

In general, we may collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:

• to provide health services to you
• to communicate with you
• to comply with our legal obligations which may include mandatory notification of communicable diseases to help us manage our accounts and administrative services.

Subject to the exceptions set out in the Privacy Act, you may seek access to and correction of the personal information which we hold about you in accordance with our access policy. If a fee is charged for providing access, you will be advised of the cost in advance. The contact person in this practice is the Practice Manager.

We will take reasonable steps to protect the security of your information and comply with our legal obligations. Our staff are trained and required to respect your privacy. We take reasonable steps to protect information held from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. If you have any questions about privacy-related issues or wish to complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles or the handling of your personal information by us, please contact our Privacy Officer. You may lodge your complaint in writing. Any complaint will be investigated by the Privacy Officer and you will be notified of the making of a decision in relation to your complaint as soon as is practicable after it has been made,
usually within 30 days.

We may disclose your personal information to the following overseas recipients:
any practice or individual who assist us in providing services (such as where you have come from overseas and had your health record transferred from overseas or have treatment continuing from an overseas provider) anyone else to whom you authorise us to disclose it; and
anyone else where authorised by law.

This Policy will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and technology, changes to our operations and other necessary developments.

Privacy Policy updated 12/1/2018