Privacy Policy
This privacy policy is designed to provide you with information on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties.
Why and when is my consent necessary?
When you register as a patient of our clinic, you provide consent for our doctors and staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.
Why do you collect, use, hold and share my personal information?
Lucan St. Medical will need to collect your personal information to provide you with healthcare services. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes (e.g. staff training).
What personal information do you collect?
The information we collect about you includes:
- personal details such as your name(s), date of birth, address and contact details
- medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
- Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
- healthcare identifiers
- health fund details.
How do you collect my personal information?
Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways.
When you make your first appointment, our staff will collect your personal and demographic information via your registration. This may be via the online registration form when you book through our website.
During the course of providing medical services, we may collect further personal information.
Information can also be collected through electronic transfer of prescriptions (eTP), My Health Record, via Shared Health Summary.
We may also collect your personal information when you send us an email, telephone us or communicate with us using social media.
In some circumstances, we may collect personal information from other sources, usually because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from your guardian or responsible person, other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services, your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).
When, why and with whom do you share your personal information?
We sometimes share your personal information with third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or information technology providers (these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy), other healthcare providers, local Primary Health Network, when it is required or authorised by law (eg court subpoenas), when it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent, to assist in locating a missing person, to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim for the purpose of the confidential dispute resolution process.
When there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (eg some diseases require mandatory notification), during the course of providing medical services, through eTP, My Health Record (eg via Shared Health Summary, Event Summary).
Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.
We will not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.
Our practice will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent. If you do consent, you may opt-out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing.
Our practice may use your personal information to improve the quality of the services we offer to our patients through research and analysis of our patient data.
We may provide de-identified data to other organisations to improve population health outcomes. The information is secure, patients cannot be identified and the information is stored within Australia. You can let our reception staff know if you do not want your information included.
How do you store and protect my personal information?
Your personal information may be stored at our practice in various forms. We mainly use electronic records protected by the latest security software and firewalls. We may also use paper records, and visual records (X-rays, CT scans, videos and photos).
Electronic records use back-ups on-site and off-site. We never use overseas servers to back-up your data. Its is important back-ups are stored in different locations to ensure recovery from an unforeseen disaster.
Our patient records are password protected. Access is granted to authorised personnel only. Staff signs a confidentiality agreement at the commencement of work. Hard copies of documents related to patient health information are kept within lockable cabinets.
How may I access and correct my personal information at your practice?
You have the right to request access to and correct your personal information.
Our practice acknowledges patients may request access to their medical records. We require you to put this request in writing to be delivered to our Practice Coordinator and our practice will respond within a reasonable time (within 30 days). There will be a fee associated with the administrative costs of preparation of this material.
Our practice will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate or up to date. From time to time, we will ask you to verify that your personal information held by our practice is correct and current. You may also request that we correct or update your information, and you should make such requests in writing to our Practice Coordinator.
How can I lodge a privacy-related complaint, and how will the complaint be handled at your practice?
We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure. We aim to respond within 30 days to sort out your concerns.
Please address this to :
Practice Coordinator
Lucan St. Medical
89-91, Lucan St. , Bendigo VIC 3550
You may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). Generally, the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond before they will investigate. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.
Privacy and our website
You have accepted our terms of use in accessing our website www.lucanstmedical.com.au. Please read the information below and do not proceed to use the website if you do not agree to our policies regarding use of our website. The use of this website is intended for your own personal, non-commercial use. Its contents belong to Lucan St. Medical and should not be reproduced for any use other than this. The website should be utilised in a lawful manner. The website may have links to third party websites. Lucan St. Medical is not affiliated with these and does not take responsibility for content that may be provided by them. These links are provided to you for ease of use but we do not endorse them.
We take the security of our website seriously and take reasonable actions to protect against cyber threats. However, any damage to your devices or loss due to use of our website is at your own risk.
We take our best efforts to update information on our website, where we reserve the right to make any changes to reflect current data without prior notice. We will not accept any responsibility if the website is unavailable for any reason and reserve the right to suspend access if deemed appropriate.
Policy review statement
We believe in reviewing our processes to maintain a high standard of care for our patients. This is to ensure that we are abreast with any changes that may occur. We shall be updating this on our website. There will be a notice at our clinic when this occurs and you are able to request a hard copy of this if you wish.
Last update 01.05.2024.