The Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 extended the operation of the Privacy Act 1988 to cover the private health sector throughout Australia. Further amendments in 2014 require our practice to abide by the 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) that apply to the handling of personal information. Including the requirement to obtain consent from their patients to collect, use and disclose that patient’s personal information.

Introduction

This privacy policy is to provide information to you, our patient, on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties. Your personal information may be stored at our practice in various forms including electronic and paper records – Our practice stores all personal information securely.

Why your consent is necessary

By providing consent for our practice staff to access and use your personal information we can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.

Why do we collect, use and disclose your personal information?

Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation. Our practice may also use your personal information to improve the quality of the services we offer to our patients through research and analysis of our patient data. Our practice will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent.

Dealing with us anonymously

You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals.

Accessing and updating your health records

You are entitled to access or update 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 privacy of another;
• The information relates to anticipated or actual legal proceeding and you would not be entitled to access the information in those
  proceedings and
• In the interest of national security

We ask that, where possible, your request be in writing. We will endeavour to respond to all requests within 14 days and you will be advised of any fees that may be associated with providing this information if applicable.

Privacy-related complaints

We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing via email (admin@stuartprosseranaesthetics.com.au). We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure. You may also contact the OAIC. Generally, the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond before they will investigate. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.

COLLECTION

This means we will collect information that is necessary to properly advise and treat you. Such necessary information may include:

• Contact details
• Full medical history/ family medical history
• Other medical information including medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history and risk factors.
• Demographic information (including ethnicity)
• Medicare/ private health fund details (for identification and claiming purposes)
• Genetic information and
• Billing/ account details

How do we collect your personal information?

Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways.

1. At your pre-anaesthetic consultation appointment.
2. Throughout the course of providing medical services.
3. We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS, telephone us
4. There may be occasions when we will need to obtain information from other sources, for example:
   • Your guardian or responsible person.
   • Other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services.
   • Your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).
   • In emergency situations we may need to collect personal information from relative or other sources where we are unable to
     obtain your prior express content.

USE AND DISCLOSURE

We may use and disclose your personal information in the following ways:

• Account keeping and billing purposes
• With other health care providers
• The management of our practice
• Quality assurance, practice accreditation and complaint handling
• To meet our obligations of notifications to our medical defence organisations or insurers
• To prevent or lesson a serious threat to an individual’s life, health or safety and
• Where legally required to do so, such as producing records to court, mandatory reporting or child abuse or the notification of
  diagnosis of certain communicable diseases.
• Any other third parties who work with our practice for business purposes. All third parties are required to comply with the APPs
  and this policy.

CONSENT

I provide my consent for Stuart Prosser Anaesthetics to collect, use and disclose my personal information as outlined above.