Our commitment to your privacy
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.
In this Policy, we explain:
- what kind of information we collect and hold about you
- how and why we collect it
- what we do with that information and who we share it with (and when)
- your right to seek access to, and if required correction of, the records we hold about you
- your right to make a privacy complaint, to us and others
- whether we are likely to disclose information about you to overseas recipients.
What kind of personal information do we collect about you?
We collect and hold the following kind of information about you:
- your name, address, date of birth, email and contact details
- information about your family or relatives
- 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 prescriptions
- your healthcare identifier
- your help fund details
- other information about you collected for the purposes of providing care to you.
How do we collect and hold your personal information?
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, from your health insurer, from the My Health Record system etc.).
Why do we collect and use information about you?
We primarily collect and use personal information about you to provide our physiotherapy services to you and to communicate with you and others involved in your care in relation to those services.
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
- to conduct accreditation, quality assurance or internal audits.
When and why might we share information about you with others?
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 lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or a serious threat to public health or safety
- to help in locating a missing person
- to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim through the My Health Record
- to prepare the defence of anticipated or existing legal proceedings
- to discharge notification obligations to liability insurers.
Your right to seek access to and to seek correction of the information we hold about you
You have the right to seek access to and correction of the personal information we hold about you.
We will usually charge a small fee for giving access
We will normally respond to your request within 30 days. To make the request, you should contact
Warrawong Physiotherapy Centre in writing:
C/-The Practice Manager
Warrawong Physiotherapy Centre
POB 121 Warrawong 2502 NSW
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 ‘Contact us’).
Security: how we hold your personal information
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 information on an password protected database
- holding information in secure cloud storage
- getting staff to sign confidentiality documents
- providing staff with training or induction etc. about confidentiality and (in particular) security issues
- access to information restricted on a ‘need to know’ basis and
- strong password protections when accessing the information on a computer.
Your right to receive treatment from us anonymously (or by using a pseudonym)
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).
Disclosing information about you overseas
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.
We may disclose your personal information to the following overseas recipients:
- any health professional who helps us to provide our physiotherapy services to you (eg. health professionals who treated you when you were overseas) or anyone else you authorise us to contact
- overseas cloud-based storage
If you have a privacy-related concern about us
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/
Updating this policy
We will update this policy from time to time, to reflect any changes in our information-handling practices or the law or both.
We will notify you of changes to the policy by public display in the waiting room or a print out if requested will be provided. An updated Privacy Policy will also be accessible on our website https://www.warrawongphysio.com.au
How to contact us:
To contact us about any privacy related issues, please approach:
Jacqui our privacy contact officer or representative onsite at Warrawong Physiotherapy.
Phone: 02 4274 2781
