The Privacy Act 1988 requires medical practitioners to obtain consent from their patients prior to collecting personal and health information. This document details how our practice will collect, use, disclose and store your information.

Collection

We will endeavour to only collect information which is required for your medical treatment. Such information may include, but is not limited to;

• A full medical history
  
• A full family/genetic history
  
• Ethnicity
  
• Contact details of yourself and if necessary, of partners, spouses or family members and your referring doctor and/or general practitioner (GP)
  
• Medicare/private health fund details
  
• Billing and account details

This information will usually be collected directly from you, however on occasions information may be collected from:

• Other medical practitioners, such as GPs or specialists
  
• Other health care providers (eg allied health professionals)
  
• Hospitals and day surgery units
  
• Pathology or radiology services

Both practice and medical practitioners may be required to collect such information from you. While we will endeavour to only collect information from other sources with your consent, in emergency situations we may be required to collect personal or health information from relatives or other sources without obtaining prior express consent.

Use and Disclosure

Your personal and health information will be kept in the strictest confidence. However, in some situations it may be necessary to use or disclose your information for the purposes such as:

• Account keeping and billing purposes
  
• Referral to another medical practitioner or health care provider
  
• Sending of samples (eg blood, urine etc) and accompanying paperwork for analysis
  
• Referral to a hospital or day surgery for treatment and/or advice
  
• Advice on treatment options
  
• The management of our practice
  
• Quality assurance, practice accreditation or complaint handling
  
• To meet obligations of notification to our medical defence or organisation or insurer
  
• To prevent or lessen a serious threat to life, health or safety of the public, an individual or yourself when we are legally required to do so, for example producing records to court or under mandatory reporting laws.

Access

You are entitled to access your own health records at any time convenient to both yourself and the practice. However, access may be denied when:

• Providing access would pose a serious threat to the life or health of yourself or another
  
• The access would unreasonably impact the privacy of another
  
• The request is frivolous or vexatious
  
• The information related to anticipated or actual legal proceedings and you would not be entitled to access the information in such proceedings

We ask that all requests for access be made in writing and are accompanied by photographic identification. The request should state the reasons for the request and what form you would like the access provided in. Should your request be denied, alternative arrangements may be made. We also ask that you collect any hard copies of records in person or nominate a third party to do so. Such a third party should be nominated in writing on a signed document stating the third party’s name and address and be accompanied by a notarised copy of your photographic identification. We reserve the right to reject any third party who we feel may not represent the patient. Hard copies can only be mailed by registered mail to avoid erroneous dissemination of information. You may incur costs associated with the copying, printing or mailing of health records.

Corrections

In order to provide sound medical care it is essential that your information is as accurate as possible. Corrections may be made to material but original records will not be destroyed or deleted. It is essential that you notify us of any changes to contact details so as to avoid any accidental disclosure of your information.