The Privacy Act 1988 requires medical practitioners to obtain consent from their patients to collect, use and disclose that patient’s information.
This means we will collect and disclose information that is necessary to properly advise and treat you. Such necessary information may include:
- Medical and family medical history;
- Ethnicity;
- Contact details;
- Medicare/private health fund details;
- Genetic information; and
- Billing/account details.
The information will normally be collected directly from you. There may be occasions when we will need to obtain information from other sources, for example:
- Other medical practitioners or health care providers, such as doctors or allied health; and
- Hospitals and Day Surgery Units. Both our practice staff and medical practitioners may participate in the collection of this information.
In emergency situations, we may need to collect personal information from relatives or other sources where we are unable to obtain your prior express consent.
Practice staff will use and disclose your information for routine purposes such as:
- Account keeping and billing purposes;
- Referral to another medical practitioner or health care provider;
- Sending of specimens, such as blood samples or pap smears, for analysis;
- Referral to a hospital for treatment and/or advice;
- Advice on treatment options;
- The management of our practice;
- Quality assurance, practice accreditation, and complaint handling;
- To meet our obligations of notification to our medical defence organisations or insurers;
- Provision of recall or reminder letters
- To meet our obligations for government incentive payment Practice staff may be required to disclose your information without your express consent:
- To prevent or lessen a serious threat to an individual’s life, health or safety;
- Where legally required to do so, such as producing records to court, mandatory reporting of child abuse or the notification of diagnosis of certain communicable diseases.
You are entitled to access your own health records at any time convenient to both yourself and the practice.
Access can be denied where:
- To provide access would create a serious threat to life or health;
- There is a legal impediment to access;
- The access would unreasonably impact on the privacy of another;
- Your request is frivolous;
- The information relates to anticipated or actual legal proceedings and you would not be entitled to access the information in those proceedings; and
- In the interests of national security
We ask that where possible your request be in writing. We may impose a charge for photocopying or for staff time involved in processing your request. Where you dispute the accuracy of the information, we have recorded you are entitled to correct that information. We will ensure that we take all reasonable steps to keep your personal information secure and private. This will include physical security, computer security, communications security, and personnel security.
