Your privacy is important to North Coast Urology. This privacy statement provides information about the personal information that North Coast Urology collects, and the ways in which North Coast Urology uses that personal information.
We are committed to protecting the privacy of patient information and to handling your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Privacy
Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012, the Australian Privacy Principles and relevant
State and Territory privacy legislation (referred to as privacy legislation).
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and disclose your personal information, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how you may make a complaint about a breach of privacy legislation.
This Privacy Policy is current from February 2016. From time to time we may make changes to our policy, processes and systems in relation to how we handle your personal information. We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect any changes. Those changes will be available on our website and in the practice.
Use and Disclosure
We will treat your personal information as strictly private and confidential. We will only use or disclose it for purposes directly related to your care and treatment, or in ways that you would reasonably expect that we may use it for your ongoing care and treatment. For example, the disclosure of blood test results to your specialist or requests for x-rays.
There are circumstances where we may be permitted or required by law to disclose your personal information to third parties. For example, to Medicare, Health Care Insurance Commission, Police, insurers, solicitors, government regulatory bodies, tribunals, courts of law, hospitals, or debt collection agents. We may also from time to time provide statistical data to third parties for research purposes.
We may disclose information about you to outside contractors to carry out activities on our behalf, such as an IT service provider, solicitor or debt collection agent. We impose security and confidentiality requirements on how they handle your personal information. Outside contractors are required not to use information about you for any purpose except for those activities we have asked them to perform.
Data Quality and Security
We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, compete, up to date and relevant. For this purpose our staff may ask you to confirm that your contact details are correct when you attend a consultation. We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.
Personal information that we hold is protected by:
• securing our premises;
• placing passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access and protect electronic
• information from unauthorised interference, access, modification and disclosure; and
• providing locked cabinets and rooms for the storage of physical records.
Corrections
If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, we ask that you contact us in writing (see details below).
Access
You are entitled to request access to your medical records. We request that you put your request in writing and we will respond to it within a reasonable time.
There may be a fee for the administrative costs of retrieving and providing you with copies of your medical records.
We may deny access to your medical records in certain circumstances permitted by law, for example, if disclosure may cause a serious threat to your health or safety. We will always tell you why access is denied and the options you have to respond to our decision.
Complaints
If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information, we request that you contact us in writing. Upon receipt of a complaint we will consider the details and attempt to resolve it in accordance with our complaints handling procedures.
If you are dissatisfied with our handling of a complaint or the outcome you may make an application to the Australian Information Commissioner or the Privacy Commissioner in your State or Territory.
Updating this statement
North Coast Urology may update this privacy policy by posting a new version on this website.
You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are familiar with any changes.
Other websites
This website contains links to other websites.
North Coast Urology is not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of any third party.
Contact North Coast Urology
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or North Coast Urology treatment of your personal information, please write:
- by submitting our contact form; or
- by post to 43 Dalley Street Lismore NSW 2480.
Credit
This document was created using a Contractology template available at http://www.freenetlaw.com and http://www.avant.org.au
