Privacy Policy
Current as of: July 2021
Introduction
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.
Why and when your consent is necessary
When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for our specialists 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.
Why do we collect, use, hold and share your personal information?
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 (eg staff training). 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. For example, the disclosure of blood test results to your specialist or requests for x-rays.
What personal information do we collect?
The information we will collect about you includes your:
- names, date of birth, addresses, contact details
- medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
- Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
- healthcare identifiers
- health fund details.
Dealing with us anonymously
The Privacy Act provides that individuals must have the option of not identifying themselves, or of using a pseudonym, when dealing with our practice, except in certain circumstances, such as where it is impracticable for us to deal with you if you have not identified yourself.
We have determined that it is largely impracticable for our practice to deal with patients anonymously or via a pseudonym. The provision of medical services is likely to be impacted, and billing via Medicare or a health insurer where applicable is likely to be compromised.
Therefore, we require that you use your name and not a pseudonym unless in cases where personal safety or the safety of others would be at risk.
How do we collect your personal information?
Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways. This information may be collected by medical and non-medical staff.
When you make your first appointment our practice staff will collect your personal and demographic information via your registration which may be over the phone, in person or over the internet if you transact with us online.
During the course of providing medical services, we may collect further personal information.
We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS or telephone us.
In some circumstances personal information may also be collected from other sources. Often this is because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from:
your guardian or responsible person such as in emergency situations
other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services
your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).
When, why and with whom do we share your personal 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 APPs and 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 assist in locating a missing person
- 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)
- Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.
- to outside contractors to carry out activities on our behalf such as an IT service provider, solicitor or debt collection agent. 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 not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.
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. In this case data will be de-identified.
How do we store and protect your personal information?
Your personal information may be stored at our practice in various forms. Most of our records are electronic and back up to a secure cloud based server. Our practice has document retention and destruction policies and staff sign confidentiality agreements upon employment.
We protect your information 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; and
- providing locked cabinets and rooms for the storage of physical records.
How can you access and correct your personal information at our practice?
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 using the contact details listed below and our practice will respond within 30 days. 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.
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 to admin@drliannebissell.com.au
How can you lodge a privacy-related complaint, and how will the complaint be handled at our practice?
We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure. You can use the contact details provided below to send your complaint and we will respond within 30 days.
You may also contact the OAIC. Generally, the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond before they will investigate. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.
You may also contact the Health Care Complaints Commisson who handle inquiries from people who are concerned about the quality of the health care provided to them or to a family member or friend. Their contact details can be found here https://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/contact-us
Privacy and our website
When you use this website our internet service provider will record and log non-personally identifiable information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, pages viewed while browsing, date and times of the visit. This information is used for statistical and website development purposes only.
Our website may use cookies. This means that upon closing a browser, the cookie assigned to an individual’s computer or device may remain active to enhance their use of the website when they return to the website. Cookies do not identify individual users or store personal information.
Google Analytics uses first party cookies to anonymously and in aggregate report on visits to this website. This may include the number of hits the website receives and the domains from which this website is accessed. To determine what our users are interested in, we may also look at the frequency of search words used in connecting you to this website.
We do not attempt to identify you during use of our website and personal information is not collected from the website unless specifically provided to us. If you make an enquiry or request by completing and submitting an online form on our website or otherwise contact us via the website, you will be required to provide some personal information (for example, your name and contact information) so that we may respond to your enquiry or request. If you do provide us with personal information, we will collect, use and disclose that information in accordance with this privacy policy. Any forms hosted on this website are protected against spam by the reCAPTCHA service provided by Google. The API works by collecting hardware and software information, such as device and application data and the results of integrity checks, and sends that data to Google for analysis. By using the forms and reCAPTCHA service, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner as described above.
If you log onto the website and read or download information: our Internet Service Provider/Hosting Provider will record your server address, domain name, the date and time of your visit to our website, the pages viewed and the information downloaded. This information is used for statistical and website development purposes only.
We may occasionally post links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices employed by any linked website.
Policy review statement
From time to time we may make changes to our policy, processes and systems in relation to how we handle your personal information to take account of new laws and technology and other necessary developments. Updates will be publicised on the practice's website.
