Privacy at a glance
The provision of safe and quality osteopathic care is our principal concern. This requires a strong relationship between the osteopath and the patient based on trust and confidentiality.
Your osteopath regards your health information as confidential. Your personal information is handled in accordance with the practice’s privacy policy and is consistent with Commonwealth and State/Territory law.
You are entitled to know what personal information is held about you; how and under what circumstances it may be disclosed; when consent is required for these purposes; and how it is stored.
We will discuss these matters with you at the time your health information is collected while attending this practice.
Clinical records are stored and transmitted securely and safeguarded against loss or damage.
Access to your information
You have the right to access your information. You may ask to view the information or ask for a copy of a part or of the whole record. You are not required to give reasons, but you may be asked to clarify the scope of the request.
Often a request will need to be in writing. Access to some information may be limited in some circumstances, but in such an event we will advise you of the reasons.
At your request, your health information held by this practice will be made available to another health service provider.
Under the Privacy Principles, the practice may charge a fee if it incurs costs in providing access, particularly if records need to be copied. Typically, it’s about $25 but may be higher for larger files.
If you find that the information held is not accurate or complete, you may have that information amended accordingly.
Parents/guardians and children
Although this may surprise some parents, privacy laws apply to children as well as adults. Under the Privacy Guidelines, a child’s right to privacy of their health information may at times restrict access by parents/guardians to that same information.
Collection, use, and disclosure of your health information
Osteopaths must keep clinical records. It’s a government requirement, and information about your medical and family health history is needed to provide accurate diagnoses and appropriate treatment.
We will only seek information that is relevant to your health. This information is generally collected directly from you or otherwise with your consent. However, from time to time we may receive information from others (for example, X-ray images and referrals from other practitioners). When this occurs, we will wherever possible make sure you know we have received this information.
Some information about you may be provided to Medicare or your private health insurer, if relevant, for billing and rebate purposes. This information generally does not include your detailed clinical records but may depend on the terms of your insurance policy.
There are circumstances where a health practitioner is legally required to disclose information. An example of this is a subpoena or other mandatory reporting requirements.
Generally, workers’ compensation and traffic accident schemes require patients treated under those schemes to agree their health information can be shared with the scheme and its insurers.
It is necessary for us to keep your health information for as long as is required by law (generally 7 years after your last consultation, but longer in some circumstances).
We will inform you if we intend to transfer your clinical records to another osteopath or clinic, or if we sell or close this clinic.
Information Collection And Use
We collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our Service to you.
Types of Data Collected
Personal Data
While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you (“Personal Data”). Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:
- Email address
- First name and last name
- Phone number
- Address, State, Province, Postal code, City
- Cookies and Usage Data
Usage Data
We may also collect information on how the Service is accessed and used (“Usage Data”). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.
Tracking & Cookies Data
We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information.
Cookies are files with a small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our Service.
You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Service.
Examples of Cookies we use: - Session Cookies. We use Session Cookies to operate our Service.
- Preference Cookies. We use Preference Cookies to remember your preferences and various settings.
- Security Cookies. We use Security Cookies for security purposes.
Use of Data
The Osteopaths use the collected data for various purposes:
- To provide and maintain the Service
- To notify you about changes to our Service
- To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so
- To provide customer care and support
- To provide analysis or valuable information so that we can improve the Service
- To monitor the usage of the Service
- To detect, prevent, and address technical issues
Transfer Of Data
Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those from your jurisdiction.
If you are located outside Australia and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to Australia and process it there.
Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
The Osteopaths will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.
Disclosure Of Data
Legal Requirements
The Osteopaths may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
- To comply with a legal obligation
- To protect and defend the rights or property of The Osteopaths
- To prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
- To protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
- To protect against legal liability
Security Of Data
The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Service Providers
We may employ third-party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service (“Service Providers”), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services, or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.
These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
Analytics
We may use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service.
- Google Analytics Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. You can opt out of having made your activity on the Service available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity.
For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en
Links To Other Sites
Our Service may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third-party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.
We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.
Changes To This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.
We will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Service, prior to the change becoming effective, and update the “effective date” at the top of this Privacy Policy.
You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us through our website contact form.