- 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 the Privacy Act 1988. Our policy is to inform you of:
- the kinds of information that we collect and hold, which, as a medical practice, is likely to be “health information” for the purpose of the Privacy Act;
- how we collect and hold personal information;
- the purpose for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information;
- how you may access your personal information and seek corrections 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:
- Your name, address, date of birth, email, contact details
- Medicare number, DVA number, pension/ concession number, health fund information
- Other health information about you, including:
- Notes of your symptoms, or diagnosis and treatment given to you
- Your specialists reports and tests results
- Your appointment and billing details
- Your prescriptions and other pharmaceutical purchases
- Your genetic information
- Your healthcare identifier
- Any other information about your race, sexuality or religion, when collected by a health service provider.
We will generally collect personal information:
- From you directly when you provide your details to us. This might be via face to face discussion, telephone conversation, Tele-Health consultation via video link, completion of patient registration form, via email or website / HealthEngine enquiry.
- From a person responsible for you/ your appointments such as a guardian or NOK.
- From third parties where the Privacy Act or other law allows it- this may include but not limited to: other members of your treating team, diagnostic centres, specialists, hospitals, Healthlink, Medicare, your health insurer, Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme.
In general, we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information for the following purposes:
- To provide health services to you
- To communicate with you in relation to the health service being provided to you
- To comply with our legal obligations, including, but not limited to, mandatory notification of communicable disease or mandatory reporting under applicable child protection legislation.
- To help us manage our accounts and administrative services, including billing, arrangements with health funds, pursuing unpaid accounts, transcription services and management of our IT communications systems.
- For consultations with other doctors and allied health professionals involved in your healthcare;
- To obtain, analyse and discuss test results from diagnostic and pathology laboratories
- For identification and insurance claiming
- To obtain information such as discharge summaries from hospitals utilising Healthlink.
- To liaise with your health fund, government and regulatory bodies such as Medicare, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) (if you make a privacy complaint to the OAIC), as necessary.
You have a right to seek access to, and make correction of the personal information we hold about you. We require that you put any request for information in writing and our practice will respond within 30days. Please note you may be charged a fee to cover the administrative costs occurred in providing access to your information however any costs will be notified in advance.
For information on how to access and correct your records, please contact our practice as noted below under “contact details”.
Our staff are trained and required to respect and protect your privacy. We take reasonable steps to protect information held from misuse and loss from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. This includes:
- Holding your information in secure cloud storage which is Australian based and includes the following security measures:
- Endpoint Antivirus/Malware on all cloud servers
- Endpoint Antivirus/Malware on all desktops/laptops
- UTM Traffic scanning of all internet traffic inside the cloud
- Fully segregated multi-technology data backups
- Locked down Microsoft security policies
- Automated Patch Policy on all cloud servers
- Regular Cybersecurity Reviews
- Least privilege access methodology applied.
- Patient clinical data further secured inside an Australian designed and maintained 3rd party Practice Management Software.
- Our staff and doctors sign confidentiality agreements.
- Our practice has document destruction procedures for securely disposing of information.
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 our practice, you may lodge your complaint in writing to our practice (see section 12 for contact details). We will normally respond to your request or complaint within 30 days.
If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may refer the matter to OAIC by calling 1300 363 992. For further information please visit www.oaic.gov.au
The Privacy Act provides that you have the option of not identifying yourself, or of using a pseudonym except in certain circumstances such as where it is impracticable for us to deal with you. The provision of medical services is likely to be impacted, and billing via Medicare and/or Health fund claiming where applicable is likely to be impracticable. However, if you are prepared to forego using your health insurance or seeking a Medicare benefit and pay the practice directly, some medical treatments may be available, on a case by case basis.
Our practice uses third party software providers including Healthlink / engine, BusinessCo, Business1300 and Gentu for our practice and website www.gerimedwa.com.au. Your privacy is of utmost importance hence the information available for you to input is kept to a minimum. Once the contact form is submitted and received by our practice the information is kept secure as per usual practice procedures for holding information.
For any enquiries please:
Practice Manager / Secretary
Phone: (08) 9493 7700
Fax: (08) 9467 9125
Email: admin@gerimedwa.com.au
Address: Suite 45, Hollywood Medical Centre
85 Monash Avenue,
Nedlands WA 6009
