Policy Information

Privacy Policy

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to outline how Faulkner Street Medical complies with its confidentiality and privacy obligations. As an organisation, FSM’s principal concern is and always will be the health of patients who visit our practice. A high level of trust and confidentiality is required to ensure the confidence of the patients we serve.

Patients will be assured that:

  • their privacy will be protected when visiting the Medical Service Provider,
  • the information collected and retained in our records is correct and up-to-date,
  • and that they can access their information for review.

Health information

FSM recognises that the information we collect is often of a highly sensitive nature and as an organisation we have adopted the highest privacy compliance standards relevant to FSM to ensure personal information is protected.

For administrative and billing purposes, and to enable the patients to be attended to by other tenanted doctors at FSM, patient information is shared between the medical practitioners/tenanted doctors and other health providers at the medical service provider. FSM and the medical practitioners/tenanted doctors may collect personal information regarding patients (including health information) for the purpose of providing medical services and treatment.

Personal information collected will generally include:

  • the patient’s name, address, telephone number and Medicare number,
  • current medications or treatments used by the patient,
  • previous/current medical history, including, where clinically relevant, a family medical history, and
  • the name of any health service provider or medical specialist to whom the patient is referred, copies of any letters of referrals and copies of any reports back.

FSM may access information:

  • provided directly by the patient,
  • provided on the patient’s behalf with the patient’s consent,
  • from a health service provider who refers the patient to medical practitioners/tenanted doctors providing services at or from FSM, or from health service providers to whom patients are referred.

Use or disclosure of personal information

Personal information collected by FSM may be used or disclosed:

  • for the purpose advised to the patient at the time of collection of the information,
  • as required for delivery of the health service to the patient,
  • as required for the ordinary operation of our services (i.e. to refer the patient to a medical specialist or other health service provider),
  • as required under compulsion of law,
  • or where there is a serious and imminent threat to an individual’s life, health, or safety; or a serious threat to public health or public safety.
  • FSM may use or disclose personal information for quality assurance, training, billing, liaising with government offices regarding Medicare entitlements and payments and as may be required by the Medical Service Provider’s insurers.

Accuracy of your information

FSM is committed to ensuring your information is accurate and has processes in place to ensure that the accuracy of this information is maintained. If you believe that the personal information the Medical Service Provider holds about you is inaccurate, please inform Medical Service Provider staff when next attending.

Dealing with us anonymously
You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym unless it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals.
You are able to use anonymity or pseudonymity during your association with us; please be aware that in this case you will be charged a consult fee in which a rebate will be non refundable and any services provided ie laboratory test and/or pharmacy scripts will also incur a full fee without receiving a Medicare rebate.

Security of information collected

Other than as described in this Policy or permitted under privacy principles, FSM uses its reasonable endeavours to ensure that identifying health information is not disclosed to any person unnecessarily or irresponsibly.

Due to the sensitive nature of the information collected by the Medical Service Provider to provide its services, extra precautions are taken to ensure the security of that information. Information may be stored electronically and / or in hard copy form. All electronically stored files are password-protected on several levels, and regular backups of data are performed.

FSM requires its employees to observe obligations of confidentiality in the course of their employment with all staff/contractors signing Confidentiality Agreements.

How long are medical records kept?

FSM keeps health information for a minimum of 7 years from the date of last entry in the patient records unless the patient is / was a child in which case the record must be kept until the patient attains or would have attained 25 years of age.

Accessing your information

On request, you may have access to your medical record held by FSM, except in circumstances where access may be denied under the ‘Privacy Act’ or other laws. For example, access can be denied when letting a patient see their records would pose a serious threat to the patient’s life or health, or the life or health of someone else (such as a relative, the health service provider, staff or other patients).

The threat must be significant, for example where there is a serious risk the patient may cause self-harm or harm to another person if they saw the information. The threat can be a risk of danger to physical or mental health, but does not need to be imminent – it can be a serious threat that might occur sometime after access is granted.

Can I transfer my medical records to a new medical practitioner/tenanted doctor?

Patients have the right to attend a medical practitioner/tenanted doctor of their choice and are free to leave a practice and attend another if they wish.

How do I arrange this?

There is a professional obligation for a medical practitioner/tenanted doctor to provide a new treating medical practitioner/tenanted doctor with all of the information that they need to take over a patient’s care.

This is usually done by the patient completing a ‘transfer of medical records’ form and producing an original source of identification for the receptionist to make a copy of.

When a patient requests that their medical records be transferred to a medical practitioner/tenanted doctor outside FSM, the medical practitioner has an obligation to provide a copy or summary of the patient health record in a timely manner to facilitate care of the patient.

For medico-legal reasons, we retain the original record and provides the new medical practitioner/tenanted doctor with a summary or a copy. If a summary of the patient’s health record is provided to the new medical practitioner/tenanted doctor, a copy of the summary should be kept on file for record purposes.

A patient can also have a copy of his/her medical records transferred by asking the new medical practitioner/tenanted doctor to arrange for the transfer of records from the previous treating medical practitioner/tenanted doctor. The patient will still have to fill in appropriate forms.

Can the doctor charge for the handing over of medical records?

Some medical practitioners/tenanted doctors may charge a fee for handling and copying their records to cover the administrative costs involved. The previous medical practitioner/tenanted doctor may charge a fee for providing a summary, especially if a patient’s medical history is long and/or complex.

Website privacy

FSM’s website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that FSM is not responsible for the privacy practices of any linked sites. We encourage users who leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every linked website that they choose to visit. All links to external sites are provided for your convenience. The information, products and advertisements contained in the linked sites are neither approved nor endorsed by FSM, and FSM is not responsible for such information, products or advertisements.

Your privacy is important to us and we want you to feel comfortable visiting our website. Any personal information that patients give to us, including e-mail addresses, will be used only in the following ways:

  • personal data given to us by you will be securely stored,
  • we will not provide your personal data to any third party without your permission,
  • we do not automatically collect your personal e-mail address simply because you visit our site,
  • if we join with a third party to provide services and you sign up for those services, we will share your name and other contact information necessary for our partner to provide the services to you,
  • if you view specific pages or download information from specific pages on our website, we will track and add the number of your visits to the aggregate number of visits by all users in order to better design our website,
  • we may share aggregate demographic information with our affiliates. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify you or any other visitor to our web site.

By using FSM’s website, you consent to the collection and use of your personal information as detailed in this Privacy Policy. We will post any changes to this Privacy Policy on our website so that you are kept up to date with the type of information we collect and the ways in which we use it.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

FSM has the right to change the Privacy Policy at any time. If there are updates to FSM’s Privacy Policy, we will address the changes promptly and update the revision date of this document.

Obtaining further information

If patients require more information regarding FSM, its services and facilities, they can:

  • ask a staff member, or
  • access FSM’s website

Contact information

If you have any queries regarding our Privacy Policy please contact:

The Privacy Officer/Manager

Faulkner Street Medical

145 Faulkner Street

Armidale NSW 2350

Or by, visiting our premesis you can submit a compliment, complaint or suggestion

Disclaimer

While we make every effort to protect your privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law where we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our company or site.

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