Information & Privacy Policy
The Privacy Act 1998 requires medical practitioners to obtain consent from their patients to collect, use and disclose that patient's personal information. This means we will collect information that is necessary to properly advise and treat you. Such necessary information may include:
Family medical History
Full medical History
Medicare/Private Health Fund Details
Contact Details
Billing/ account details
This 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, such as former GPs and Specialists
Hospitals and Day Surgery Units
Other Health care providers such as Physiotherapists, Pharmacists, Dentists, Nurses
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.
Use & Disclosure
With your consent, the practice staff will use and disclose your information for the purposes such as:
Account keeping and bill purposes;
Referral to another medical practitioner or health care provider;
Sending of specimens, such as blood 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;
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, or notification of diagnosis of certain communicable diseases
To supply results/reports/recommendations to your referring doctor pertaining to your medical management Organisations or insurers.
My Heath Record - Patient consent, uploading and viewing clinical information
In registering for a My Health Record, patients provide a "standing consent" for all healthcare organisations involved in their care to upload clinical information to their record. There is no requirement for a provider to obtain consent on each occasion prior to uploading clinical information. There is also no requirement for a patient to review clinical information prior to it being uploaded.
If a patient requests that a clinical document is not uploaded, a provider is obliged to follow this request. Any person involved in an individual's healthcare and authorised by a healthcare organisation, can access and view an individual's My Health Record. A healthcare organisation may authorise clinicians to view a patient's My Health Record as well as other staff who need to access the My Health Record system as part of their role in healthcare delivery. My Health Record legislation does not prevent a healthcare provider from accessing and viewing an individual's My Health Record outside of a consultation, ie. without the individual being present, provided that access is for the purpose of providing healthcare to the individual. For example, a specialist may choose to review clinical documents in an individual's My Health Record prior to a consultation.
My Health Record- Patient Privacy Controls
Individuals have the ability to control which healthcare organisations access the information in their My Health Record by enabling advanced privacy controls, Individuals can limit access to their entire record (using a Record Access Code) or to particular documents (using a Limited Document Access Code). The patient will need to provide their access code to a provider for the provider to access their My Health Record. A provider will be prompted by their clinical software it an access code is required. In an emergency, a provider can assert the emergency access functionality which will override the existing access controls for a specified period. For more information about My Health Record privacy controls, see the Privacy and Security FAQS on the myhealthrecord.gov.au website.
Access
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;
In the interests of national security;
Your request for the information is frivolous;
The information related to anticipated or actual legal proceedings and you would not be entitled to access the information in those proceedings.
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. It is our practice that we will take all steps to record all of your corrections, and place them with your file but will not erase the original record.