We are committed to handling personal information about you, including health information about you, in accordance with the requirements of the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988.

We collect and hold the following kind of information about you:

• your name, address, date of birth, email and contact details
• information about other health professionals involved in your care
• any government identifiers such as Medicare number, DVA number. However,
  we do not use these for the purposes of identifying you in our practice
• other health information about you such as: a record of your symptoms, your relevant medical history, the diagnosis made and the treatment we give you:
  • specialist reports
  • test results
  • your appointment and billing details
  • your medications
  • your healthcare identifier
  • your health fund details
  • other information about you collected for the purposes of providing care to you.

We will generally collect personal information about you in these ways:

• directly from you when you give us your details (eg, face-to-face, over the phone,
  via registration form or an online form)
• from a person responsible for you
• from a third party where we are permitted by law to do that (eg. other health care professionals involved in your care).

We primarily collect and use personal information about you to provide our health services to you and to communicate with you and others involved in your care in relation to those services. Patient information is stored for 7 years for adults or until the age of 25 for those who were a minor when last treated.

We also sometimes use that information for other purposes, including:

• to help us manage our accounts and administrative services, including billing, arrangements with health funds, pursuing unpaid accounts, management of our IT systems
• Email communication to clients eg clinic updates, information about new services or practitioners etc. Clients can opt out of our email communications at any time by unsubscribing to them.

We may disclose information about you to others outside of our practice as permitted or required
under law. This will include situations where we disclose information about you in order:

• to comply with our legal obligations (eg. mandatory reporting under legislation,
  responding to a court order or subpoena)
• to consult with other health professionals involved in your healthcare
• to get test results from diagnostic and pathology services
• to claim on insurance
• to communicate with your health fund, with government and other regulatory
  bodies such as Medicare
• to help us manage our accounts and administrative services (eg. billing or debt recovery, arrangements with health funds, pursuing unpaid accounts etc.)
• to prepare the defence of anticipated or existing legal proceedings
• to discharge notification obligations to liability insurers.

You have the right to seek access to and correction of the personal information we hold about you.

Individuals seeking access to their personal information, either for their own purposes or that of another health care provider, can request a copy of their clinical records. Your signed written consent is required prior to release of any personal details or medical information. A small administration fee may be charged.

We will normally respond to your request within 30 days. To make the request, you should contact the practice manager.

If you think that the information we hold about you is not correct, let us know in writing. We will
take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate
or up-to-date. From time to time, we may also ask you to verify that the information we hold about
you is correct and current. And please notify us if and when your contact details change
(see ‘how to contact us’).

We take reasonable steps to protect the information we hold about you. These are designed to
prevent unauthorised access, modification or disclosure and to prevent misuse and loss.
This includes:

• holding written/paper based information in a lockable cabinet
• holding information in secure cloud storage (Cliniko).
• providing staff with training or induction etc. about confidentiality and (in particular)
  security issues
• strong password protections when accessing the information on a computer.

Where it is lawful and practicable for us to do so, you can be treated anonymously or through use
of a pseudonym (a name other than yours).

We do not propose to disclose information about you to anyone overseas. If we want to transfer
your personal information overseas, we will first seek your consent, unless we are required by
law to do the transfer.

If you have concerns about the way we’ve handled your privacy, let us know. You should do that in writing. We will then try to respond to you within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the
Australian Information Commission, whose contact details are:

Phone: 1300 363 992
Email:    enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Post:      GPO Box 5218 Sydney New South Wales 2001

Website: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/

We will update this policy from time to time, to reflect any changes in our information-handling
practices or the law or both.