Our Privacy Policy

Practice Procedure:

The Practice will:

• provide a copy of this policy upon request
• Ensure staff comply with the Australian Privacy principles (APP) and deal appropriately with inquiries or concerns

take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to implement practices, procedures and systems to ensure compliance with the APP and deal with inquiries or complaints

• collect personal information for the primary purpose of managing a patient’s healthcare and for financial claims and payments.

Staff Responsibility:

The Practice’s staff will take reasonable steps to ensure patients understand:

• what information has been and is being collected
• why the information is being collected, and whether this is due to a legal requirement
• how the information will be used or disclosed
• why and when their consent is necessary
• the Practice’s procedures for access and correction of information, and responding to complaints of information breaches, including by providing this policy.

Patient consent:

The Practice will only interpret and apply a patient’s consent for the primary purpose for which it was provided. The Practice staff must seek additional consent from the patient if the personal information collected may be used for any other purpose.

Collection of information:

The Practice will need to collect personal information as a provision of clinical services to a patient at the practice. Collected personal information will include patients’:

• names, addresses and contact details
• Medicare number (where available) (for identification and claiming purposes)
• healthcare identifiers
• medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors.
  

A patient’s personal information may be held at the Practice in various forms:

• as paper records
• as electronic records
• as visual – x-rays, CT scans, videos and photos

The Practice’s procedure for collecting personal information is set out below.

1. Practice staff collects patients’ personal and demographic information via registration when patients present to the Practice for the first time. Patients are encouraged to pay attention to the collection statement attached to/within the form and information about the management of collected information and patient privacy.
2. During the course of providing medical services, the Practice’s healthcare practitioners will consequently collect further personal information.
3. Personal information may also be collected from the patient’s guardian or responsible person (where practicable and necessary), or from any other involved healthcare specialists.

The Practice holds all personal information securely, whether in electronic format, in protected information systems or in hard copy format in a secured environment.

Use and disclosure of information:

Personal information will only be used for the purpose of providing medical services and for claims and payments, unless otherwise consented to. Some disclosure may occur to third parties engaged by or for the Practice for business purposes, such as accreditation or for the provision of information technology. These third parties are required to comply with this policy. The Practice will inform the patient where there is a statutory requirement to disclose certain personal information or the use of identifiable patient health information for research or quality improvement, (for example, some diseases require mandatory notification).

The Practice will not disclose personal information to any third party other than in the course of providing medical services, without full disclosure to the patient or the recipient, the reason for the information transfer and full consent from the patient. The Practice will not disclose personal information to anyone outside Australia without need and without patient consent.

Exceptions to disclose without patient consent are where the information is:

• required by law
• 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 assist in locating a missing person
• to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim
• for the purpose of a confidential dispute resolution process.
  

The Practice will not use any personal information in relation to direct marketing to a patient without that patient’s express consent. Patients may opt-out of direct marketing at any time by notifying the Practice in a letter or email.

The Practice evaluates all unsolicited information it receives to decide if it should be kept, acted on or destroyed.

Requesting of information held:

Australian privacy law gives you the patient, a general right to access your personal information. This includes your health information.

The patient will be requested to put in writing and/or sign a Release of Records form for access to their health information. In addition, information that identifies the patient will be require, Including:

• your name and contact details
• the personal information you want to access
• how you’d like access to the personal information (such as receiving a copy by email or post, or if you just want to look at the information)
• if you authorise a person or organisation to access the personal information on your behalf This request once received will be actioned within 30 days of request received.

Please refer to Australian Privacy Principles (APP)

STANDARDS FOR GENERAL PRACTICE 5TH EDITION (RACGP, 2017) STANDARDS FOR GENERAL PRACTICES 5TH EDITION RESOURCE GUIDE (RACGP, 2017)