Privacy Policy

The King Street Medical Clinic management team are committed to protecting the privacy of all patients within the practice. All information collected is strictly confidential and used only for the medical and health care of our patients.

All King Street Medical Clinic staff and contractors are required to observe the confidentiality obligations throughout their employment or engagement and all are required to sign Confidentiality Agreements.

COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE

At King Street Medical Clinic (the Practice), we recognise that the information we collect is often of a highly sensitive nature and we have adopted the privacy compliance standards that are relevant to King Street Medical Clinic ensuring personal information is protected.

To ensure the ongoing quality and continuity of care, our patient’s health information is shared between the medical practitioners of King Street Medical Clinic for administrative and billing purposes.

Collected personal information for patients of the Practice will include:

  • Names, addresses and contact details
  • Medicare number for identification and claiming purposes
  • Healthcare identifiers
  • Medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors.

A patient’s personal information may be held at the practice in various forms:

  • As paper records
  • As electronic records
  • As visuals, for example X-rays, CT scans, videos and photos
  • As audio recordings

The Practice procedure for collecting personal information is:

  • The Practice staff will collect a new patient’s personal and demographic information when the patient presents to the clinic for the first time. Patients are encouraged to read the collection statement when completing the registration form.
  • The Practice healthcare practitioners will collect further personal information when providing medical services.
  • Personal information may be collected from the patient’s guardian or responsible person (where practicable and necessary) or from other involved healthcare specialists.
  • The practice holds all personal information in a secure environment, whether in electronic formats, protected information systems or in hard copy.

Personal information collected by the Practice may be used or disclosed in the following instances:

  • As required to provide the normal operation of medical services. For example, for referral to a medical specialist or other health service provider
  • For billing purposes – To Medicare or other funding agencies like the Department of Veteran Affairs, WorkCover, your employer, or your insurance agency as applicable
  • As required by law for mandatory reporting of communicable diseases
  • As necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety, or when it is impracticable to obtain patient’s consent or there is a risk to public health or safety
  • To assist in locating a missing person
  • For the process of confidential dispute resolution
  • For medical defence purposes
  • Or, another purpose the patient was advised during consult with the treating medical practitioner

Some disclosure may occur to third parties engaged by, or for the Practice for professional business purposes such as

  • Practice Accreditation (Agpal). Every three years GP Assessors view a small number of patient files to ensure quality and compliance criteria are being met. No patient information is printed or removed from the premises
  • National Quality Improvement Programs (QI-PIP). The Practice participates in this improvement program by providing unidentifiable patient data to help direct national health priorities. Information from our database is provided to YOURPHN (The Primary Health Network) without identifying the individual patient

You can opt out if you don’t wish your data to be included in these programs by advising our reception staff.

The Practice will not disclose personal information to any third party other than as described above and in the course of providing medical services, without full disclosure to the patient or the recipient, the reason for the information transfer and full consent from the patient.

The Practice will not disclose personal information to anyone outside Australia without need and without patient consent.

The Practice will not use any personal information for direct marketing to a patient without their express consent.

King Street Medical Clinic will use all reasonable endeavours to ensure that a patients’ personal information is not disclosed without their prior consent.

DATA QUALITY

Patient information is collected and retained in our records for the purpose of providing quality health care. It will be complete, accurate and up-to-date at the time of collection.

We review our data periodically and actively work towards maintaining data quality. We do this by using data extraction, interpretation and cleansing.

DATA SECURITY & RETENTION

All care is taken to ensure patient privacy is protected during the transfer, storage and use of personal health information.

Medical records are retained for a minimum of 7 years from the last entry date in the patient record, unless the patient is a child, in which case the record must be kept until the patient reached the age of 25 years.

ACCESS TO PATIENT INFORMATION AND CORRECTION

An individual patient has the right to request access to their personal information, or can request a copy of all, or part of the whole record. The following information applies to accessing personal and private medical information by an individual:

  • Patients have the right to obtain their personal information. Requests must be made in writing using our ‘Request for Access to Health Records’ form and the information can be expected within 30 days.
  • While a reason is not required for requesting the information, the patient may be asked to clarify the scope of the request
  • In some instances, the request for information may be denied, in these instances the Practice will notify you
  • The Practice will take reasonable steps to correct personal information if it is not accurate or up to date. From time to time, patients will be asked to verify personal information held by the Practice is correct and up to date
  • You may correct or update information held by the Practice on request
  • On written request by the patient, information held by the Practice will be made available to another health care provider.

PARENTS, GUARDIANS AND CHILDREN

To protect the privacy rights of a child, access to a child’s medical information may be restricted at times for parents and guardians.

COMPLAINTS

We understand the importance of confidentiality and discretion with the way we manage and maintain the personal information of our patients. King Street Medical Clinic takes any complaints and concerns about the privacy of patient’s personal information seriously. If you have any questions, concerns or a complaint, please contact us and we will respond to you promptly.

If you are dissatisfied with the level of service provided by the clinic, or have concerns about the privacy of your information, we encourage you to discuss these concerns with the Practice Manager or your medical practitioner.

If the complaint has not been resolved to your level of satisfaction you may contact;

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)

GPO Box 5218
Sydney NSW 2001

enquiries@oaic.gov.au

https://www.oaic.gov.au/individuals/how-do-i-make-a-privacy-complaint

Health Complaints Commissioner

1300 582 113

hcc@hcc.vic.gov.au

https://hcc.vic.gov.au/contact

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

Our practice complies with the Privacy Act (1988), the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic), the Health Records Regulations 2012 (Vic) and the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and we acknowledge the importance of protecting the confidentiality and privacy of all patients and recognise the rights of our patients in relation to their personal information. We also comply with National Privacy Principles and Freedom of information Act 2001