Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

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 November 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.

WHAT WE COLLECT

We collect information that is necessary and relevant to provide you with medical care and treatment and manage our medical practice. This information may include your name, address, date of birth, gender, health information, family history, credit card and direct debit details and contact details. This information may be stored on our computer medical records system and/or in handwritten medical records.

Wherever practicable we will only collect information from you personally. However, we may also need to collect information from other sources such as treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals and other health care providers.

We collect information in various ways, such as over the phone or in writing, in person in the rooms of Dr Guy Watts or over the internet if you transact with us online. Primarily, we collect this information about you through correspondence we engage in with you which may involve the use of email and websites.

We also collect information about our clients from their employers or health funds (where relevant). This information may be collected by medical and non-medical staff.

In emergency situations we may also need to collect information from your relatives or friends. We may be required by law to retain medical records for certain periods of time depending on your age at the time we provide services.

HOW WE USE COOKIES

If you have engaged with us over the internet via our website we may collect information via cookies. A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

HOW WE HOLD YOUR INFORMATION

Depending on the circumstances, we may hold your information in either hard copy or electronic form or both. Generally, a copy of all correspondence is held in an electronic form.

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.

We use your personal information to:

▶Provide you with products and service

▶To administer our customer relationship with you

▶For internal purposes such as procedural assessments, risk, management, product and service reviews, staff training, accounting and billing

If you are one of our suppliers, we may use your information to facilitate our business relationship with you, for example, to assess goods or services that you supply or to review a commercial proposal that you have put to us.

There are circumstances where we may be permitted or required by law to disclose your personal information to third parties. For example, to Medicare, Police, insurers, solicitors, government regulatory bodies, tribunals, courts of law, hospitals, or debt collection agents. From time to time we may also 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.

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We may use your personal information to send you promotional information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.

PROMOTIONAL INFORMATION

We occasionally email information to all patients who have provided their email addresses for this express purpose. If you have received such material in error please inform us either by email to admin@guywattsplasticsurgeon.com.au, by telephone (08) 9286 1600, by facsimile (08) 9226 1257 or mail at Dr Guy Watts, PO Box 487 Leederville WA 6902.

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.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online including;

▶ 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

OVERSEAS TRANSFER OF DATA

We will not transfer your personal information to an overseas recipient unless we have your consent or we are required to do so by law.

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. Information regarding how to lodge a complaint is available from the Commissioner’s website at www.privacy.gov.au or by ringing the Commissioner’s information line on 1300363992. However, before investigating a complaint, the Commissioner is legally required to be satisfied that you have first expressed your concern to us to afford us the opportunity to resolve the complaint directly, unless it is inappropriate for you to do so.

CONTACT

Please direct any queries, complaints or requests for access to medical records to our Practice Manager via any of the following forms:

Email: admin@guywattsplasticsurgeon.com.au

Telephone: (08) 9286 1600,

Facsimile: (08) 9226 1257 or

Mail :

Attention: Practice Manager

Dr Guy Watts

PO Box 487 Leederville

Western Australia 6902