Introduction

This privacy policy is to provide information to you, our patient, 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 your consent is necessary

When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for our Optometrists and practice 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 we collect, use, hold and share your personal information?

Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your eyecare. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, marketing and business processes (eg staff training).

What personal information do we collect?

The information we will collect about you includes your:

  • names, date of birth, addresses, contact details
  • medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, social history, family history and risk factors
  • Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
  • healthcare identifiers
  • health fund details.

Dealing with us anonymously

You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym unless it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals.

How do we collect your personal information?

Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways.

  • When you make your first appointment our practice staff will collect your personal and demographic information via your registration.
  • During the course of providing optometry services, we may collect further personal information. We share information electronically through My Health Record or CDMNet. We also transmit information via secure encrypted messaging software.
  • We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS, telephone us, make an online appointment or communicate with us using social media.
  • In some circumstances personal information may also be collected from other sources. Often this is because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from:
  1. your guardian or responsible person
  2. other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services
  3. your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).

When, why and with whom do we 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
  • with other healthcare providers
  • 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 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 optometry services, My Health Record (eg via Shared Health Summary, Event Summary), CDMNet,

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.

Digital Information:

Health information will not be shared without your consent. General demographic data for physical and online marketing purposes. This may include

If you do consent, you may opt out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing.

How do we store and protect your personal information?

Your personal information may be stored at our practice in various forms. We use electronic records to store your information. Letters, photos, scans or other images are also stored electronically.

Our practice stores all personal information securely, via a secure online backup system.

How can you access and correct your personal information at our practice?

You have the right to request access to, and correction of, your personal information.

Our practice acknowledges patients may request access to their medical records. We require you to put this request in writing, and our practice will respond within 30 business days.

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 Simpson Optometry, 70 Bunda Street, Canberra 2601. Alternatively via email (email at simpsonoptometry dot com dot au) – spelled out to avoid internet crawlers spamming us.

How can you lodge a privacy-related complaint, and how will the complaint be handled at our 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. You may write to to Simpson Optometry, 70 Bunda Street, Canberra 2601. Alternatively via email (email at simpsonoptometry dot com dot au)

You may also contact the 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. You can also lodge a complaint via Health Service Complaints at http://hrc.act.gov.au.

Privacy and our website

When you use our website, we may use aggregated, anonymous analytic tracking via a third party to gather information about the way the website is used. Our website may also use third-party cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect or receive information from your website and elsewhere on the internet and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads. It also enables us to keep track of products or services you view so that, if you consent, we can send you news about those products or services. We use this to research our users’ habits so that we can improve our online products and services.

Remarketing

Simpson Optometry uses remarketing tracking cookies and conversion pixels from vendors such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest to present special offers to you for our products or services over the Google Content Network and via social networks. This means you may see an advert for one of our products or services as a result of visiting our website. In addition, Simpson Optometry uses custom audiences based on your first name, last name, city, postcode, state, mobile number, date of birth or email address of customers. This allows us to present special offers for our products and services to you via Facebook or Instagram. However, your personally identifiable information is not used by any remarketing service other than to present you special offers from us.

Policy review statement

This privacy policy will be reviewed regularly to ensure it is in accordance with any changes in normal procedures or updated state legislation that may occur. Updates will be available on our website.

You can download this Statement as a PDF document here.

Last updated 28th July 2017