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. This Privacy Policy is current from April 2018 and is reviewed annually. From time to time we may make changes to our policy, processes and systems in relation to how we handle your personal information. We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect any changes. Those changes will be available on our website and in the practice.
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:
Wherever practicable, we will only collect information from you personally. However, we may also need to collect information from other sources such as treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals, other health care providers, and the My Health Record system.
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.
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.
Legal Disclosure Requirements
There are circumstances where we may be permitted or required by law to disclose
your personal information to third parties. This includes:
Solicitors & Legal Bodies
Government Regulatory Bodies
Research (Statistical Data)
We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, 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 We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.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.
If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information (including complaints about our use of the Myhealth record system), 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 or the Privacy Commissioner in your State or Territory
Please direct any queries, complaints, requests for access to medical records to our administrative staff at:
