Privacy Policy

Introduction

Bulimba Dermatology is 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).
*Note: At this time, no additional Queensland legislation exists for the private sector.

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 31 August 2019. 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, and make it available on our website and in the practice.

Collection

Bulimba Dermatology collects information that is necessary and relevant to provide you with medical care and treatment, and to manage our specialist medical practice. This information may include your name, address, date of birth, gender, health information, family history, billing and payment information, and contact details, as well as photographs/video to manage and monitor your skin condition. This information may be stored in our practice management software and/or in hand written 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 third parties involved in your care, treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals and other healthcare providers.

We collect information in various ways, such as over the phone or in writing, by fax, email or secure message delivery (SMD) (i.e. Medical-Objects Secure Messaging) from other healthcare providers, in person in the practice, or over the Internet if you communicate with us online. 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.

Bulimba Dermatology has CCTV systems operating on our premises for the purposes of maintaining safety and security for our patients, visitors, staff, other attendees and our property. Our CCTV system may collect and store personal information and the use of our CCTV will be in accordance with the Privacy Act.

Use and Disclosure

Bulimba Dermatology 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, and in managing our specialist medical practice. For example: use of photographs/video to investigate, manage and monitor your skin condition; disclosure of blood test results to your general practitioner or another specialist; electronic (i.e. email or fax) transfer of photographs/video to other medical practitioners for investigations or treatment; provision of appointment time details to third parties involved in your care (unless you have expressly advised us otherwise); undertaking administrative tasks including patient recall, billing and claims processing.

If personal information about your condition is used for teaching or educational purposes, or for publication in medical journals or texts, such material will be de-identified. Where de-identification is not an option, or in circumstances where Bulimba Dermatology would like to use your personal information (such as photographs) for any other purposes, your further specific consent will be sought.

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. We may also from time to time 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.

Bulimba Dermatology may contact you directly or send you communications and information about our services (or changes in our services) that we consider may be relevant and of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including by mail, phone and email. We will not provide your personal information to other organisations, and you may opt-out of receiving communications about such services from us at any time by contacting us. If requested to do so, we will remove your contact details from our mailing list, in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth).

Data Quality and Security

Bulimba Dermatology will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, 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.

Personal information that we hold is protected by:

  • confirmation of your contact details;
  • securing our premises;
  • providing locked cabinets and rooms for the storage of physical records;
  • employing secure document destruction and disposal services;
  • placing passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access and protect electronic information from unauthorised interference, access, modification and disclosure;
  • IT support systems and services including firewall protection and data recovery tools; and
  • staff induction and privacy training.

Bulimba Dermatology’s website, email and fax lines are linked to the Internet. As no data transfer over the Internet is 100% secure, any information transmitted to or from us either via our website, by unencrypted email or by fax, is done so with an inherent risk that it could be read by someone other than the intended recipient. Bulimba Dermatology prioritises the use of secure messaging software (i.e. Medical-Objects Secure Messaging) between healthcare providers, but this is not always an available option and not an option when communicating with patients and other non-healthcare providers. Because electronic messaging is often a preferred method of communication due to its convenience, and because the associated security risks are low, patients may request and/or undertake communications with Bulimba Dermatology in this way. We will attempt to confirm email addresses with the recipient, and will always encourage all parties to consider the appropriateness of material to be sent and discussed via electronic messaging.

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 how we have dealt with your personal information, we request that you advise us of your concerns in writing, identifying yourself and providing enough information to allow us to investigate the matter and to respond to you. We will deal with your complaint fairly and confidentially. On receipt of a complaint, we will consider the details, hold discussions with our staff, doctors and others as appropriate, and communicate the outcome to you in writing as soon as is practicable and within 30 days of receipt of a written complaint. As part of our response to you, we will invite a response from you to our conclusion about the complaint.

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 Queensland Information Commissioner.

Overseas Transfer of Data

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

Additional Relevant Information When Using Our Website

Use of Cookies

A 'cookie' is a small data file placed on your machine or device which lets us identify and interact more effectively with your computer. Cookies are used by many websites, including those operated by Bulimba Dermatology. Cookies can facilitate a user’s ongoing access to and use of a website. Cookies allow us to customise our website to the needs of our users. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the cookie feature. However, cookies may be necessary to provide you with some features of our website.

Collection of Non-identifiable Information

We may also collect some information that is not personal information because it does not identify you. For example, we may collect anonymous answers to surveys or aggregated information about how our website is used.

Links to Other Sites

Our website may provide links to third party websites. These linked sites are not under our control and we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices employed by those websites. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website, we recommend that you carefully read the terms and conditions of use and privacy statement of the relevant website.

Contact

Please direct any queries, corrections to your information, requests for access to your medical records or complaints to:

Practice Manager, Bulimba Dermatology
Phone:  07 3399 1100
Email:   by submitting our contact form
Post:     PO Box 112, Bulimba Qld 4171