Health Information Collection and Use
Collection
As a patient of our medical practice we require you to provide us with your personal details and a full medical history, so that we may properly assess, diagnose, treat and be proactive in your health care needs. To deliver the best quality of care to you, there may be occasions where the information is shared with other treating health professionals and as such you will be aware of these situations.
We aim to protect the privacy and secure storage of your health information. You can request a copy of our privacy policy, which includes information about the collection, use, storage and disclosure of your health information.
Use and Disclosure
Patient consent for the transfer of health information to other providers or agencies is obtained on the first visit. We require your consent to collect personal information about you and to use the information you provide in the following ways.
- Administrative purposes in running our medical practice.
- Billing purposes, including compliance with Medicare and Health Insurance Commission requirements.
- Disclosure to others involved in your healthcare including treating doctors and specialists outside this medical practice. This may occur though referral to other doctors, or for medical tests and in the reports or results returned to us following referrals.
- Disclosure to other doctors in the practice, locums, nurses, students and other allied health professionals etc. within the practice team for the purpose of patient care and teaching.
- For research and quality assurance activities to improve individual and community health care and practice management. Usually information that does not identify you is used but should information that will identify you be required you will be informed and given the opportunity to “opt out” of any involvement.
- To comply with any legislative or regulatory requirements e.g. notifiable diseases.
- For reminder letters which may be sent to you regarding your health care and management.
Consent is not required for some practical related purposes, such as providing basic information to Medicare, your health fund, or for billing and account management. In certain limited circumstances, such as emergencies or when required by law to disclose basic information. consent is also not required.
Data Quality, Security And Storage
All reasonable steps are taken to ensure that personal information held by us will be accurate and up to date. Care is taken in the storage, use and transfer of all personal information.
Access to your personal health information is restricted to those people who need it and up to date systems and processes are in place to protect the information.
Openness And Access
Details of how we manage your personal health information are available to you. You have the right to seek information from us about the privacy policy of the organisation.
Patients may request access to their health information and can update or correct information held by us. A charge may apply to access information.
On request, and with your consent, information held by us may be provided to another health provider.
There are some circumstances where access to health information is restricted and in these cases reasons for this will be explained to you.
Complaints
Please discuss any concerns with us.
In the event your concerns have not been addressed you can lodge a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner
Identifiers, Anonymity And Transborder Data Flows
There are some additional requirements under the Privacy Act that do not generally impact in the provision of medical services.
These include:
- Limiting the use of commonwealth identifiers to those uses necessary.
- Recognition of the right to anonymity (although in the context of medical care this is not likely to be practicable).
- Protection of privacy when information is sent interstate or outside Australia.
Summary
The Federal Privacy Act incorporates 10 National Privacy Principles that set out the rules for handling personal information in the private sector.
In the interests of providing quality health care we have developed a privacy policy that complies with the legislation and recognises the rights of our patients to privacy.
Consent
You can decline to have your health information used in all or some of the ways outlined above but it may influence our ability to manage your health care to provide the best outcome for you.