Privacy

GOALS for Women, Gynaecology Obstetrics & Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery Sydney Australia

Our practice is committed to ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information.

What follows is important information we need to share with you, so we recommend taking the time to read through the details of our Privacy Policy.

Our Privacy Policy is all about personal information – all the things we know about you. Because your information is so important to us, we’ll always be honest and transparent about how we handle it.

It all comes down to our practice’s wanting to be more than just a medical service provider. Every day we’re using information collected to improve our practice and provide better outcomes. In order to provide you with the healthcare services that you have requested, we will need to collect and use your personal information. If you provide incomplete or inaccurate information to us or withhold personal health information from us we may not be able to provide you with the services you are seeking.

Why we collect personal information

We collect personal information from you when it is reasonably necessary for us to conduct the services you may need. That means we collect it to supply you with the answers, products and services you have asked for or may require.

Other reasons we collect personal information are to:

Understand you, and how we can meet your needs now and in the future.
Develop or evaluate your current and future health.
Create improved information for our website and other material.
Manage our business/practice.
Comply with our legal obligations.
Claim payment from Medicare and insurers.
Comply with hospital and third party collaborators information needs.
Comply with our reporting and other obligations to third party collaborators or facilities (like assisting medical professionals, theatre staff and post-operative support teams).
Enable sending correspondence and reports to and from our clinical desktop system to other healthcare providers.

The type of information we collect to assist the healthcare team in diagnosing and treating your condition may include:

Personal information like you name, address, date of birth, gender.
Your health history, ethnic background or your current lifestyle.
Information about how and where you were referred to us.
Health information including medical results, clinical and medical records.
Family medical history and their details.
Other medical service providers’commentary, diagnosis and test results.

Where we collect information

There are a few different ways we collect this information. We collect most personal information directly from you. This could include:

Information from a form online.
In the clinic.
On the phone.

We may also collect personal information during our relationship with you. For example, we may collect personal information:

When you pay your bill or make an appointment.
During a consultation.
Completing a form (online or in the rooms).
Analytics cookies: we use these to gather statistics about our site and apps. For example, they help us monitor how many users are on the site or app, and what sections are most popular.

What we collect from others

Other people might give us personal information about you. This could include information obtained from:

Your employer, parent or guardian if you are under 18.
Other companies that are able to disclose it to us, if it’s not practical to collect it from you including personal information from trusted sources and professional service providers.

We take reasonable steps to make sure you know we have your personal information, how we got it and how we’ll handle it.

Who we work with

We may share your personal information within a wider group of professional service providers.

You may be referred for diagnostic tests such as pathology or radiology and our staff may consult with medical experts when determining your diagnosis or treatment. Our staff may also refer you to other health service providers for further treatment during and following your admission (for example, to a physiotherapist, endocrinologist, psychologist or outpatient or community health services). In dealing with us our service may involve several stages and aspects of the complete service may involve other parties, such as anaesthetists or post-operative care providers, we’ll give them the personal information they need to provide and manage their relationship with you. In these circumstances, we have arrangements in place with our partners that limit their use or disclosure of your personal information to these purposes.

Outstanding payments

In some circumstances, we may need to refer to VEDA, a credit reporting agency. If we do this, we’ll give them secure access to the personal information they need to handle the debt.

Legal obligations and other privacy exceptions

We give access to personal information where we are permitted or obliged to do so by Australian Law. For example, in some circumstances we will use or disclose personal information to react to unlawful activity, serious misconduct, or to reduce or prevent a serious threat to life, health or safety. We are obliged to cooperate with law enforcement bodies in some circumstances. We may disclose personal information, including information about phone calls and service use, when we receive an access request or warrant thatis authorised under Australian Law.

Others

We will only disclose personal information to others if you’ve given us permission, or if the disclosure relates to the main reason we collected the information and you’d reasonably expect us to do so.

How to protect information

Security is serious. We’re committed to protecting your personal information. Some of the security measures we use include:

Firewalls and access logging tools that protect against unauthorised access to your data and our network.
Secure work environments and workflow systems that prevent unauthorised access and copying of your personal information.
Secure server and closed network environments.
Encryption of data.
Virus scanning tools.
Management of access privileges, to ensure that only those who really need it can see your personal information.

How to access your personal information

If you ask us, we will usually give you access to the personal information we hold about you. We will always confirm you identity before giving access to your personal information.

There are circumstances under Australian privacy laws where we may not give you access to the personal information we hold about you. For example, we can’t give you access if it would unreasonably affect someone else’s privacy or if giving you access poses a serious threat to someone’s life, health or safety.

There is generally no cost for accessing the personal information we hold about you, unless the request is complex or resource intensive. If there is a charge, it will be reasonable and we will let you know what it is going to be so that you can agree to it before we go ahead.

Quality of personal information

We encourage you to update your details with us so we can deliver better service to you and so the others we work with (like emergency services, allied health professionals, specialisits) have access to the information they need to do their job.

Getting in touch

We recognise that your personal information is important to you, so please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this policy or our practices.

If you are unhappy with the outcome, you can lodge a complaint with the Healthcare Complaints Commission: 1800 043 159.