Privacy Policy
Inform Physio & Co Privacy Policy
Parties: You will be referred to throughout this Privacy Policy as (‘you” or “your”). Inform Physio & Co ABN 12 616 569 870 will be referred to throughout as Inform Physio & Co or (“us”, “we” or “our”).
Overview:
Inform Physio & Co understands the importance people place on their personal information being collected. Personal information collected by us is treated with the appropriate degree of privacy and confidentiality.
This Privacy Policy is intended to provide you with a general explanation of how we may collect, store, use and disclose your personal information. This Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with any other terms and conditions that appear in or are linked to the Inform Physio & Co’s website.
We are committed to handling personal information about you, including health information about you, in accordance with the requirements of the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988.
In this Policy, we explain:
- what kind of information we collect and hold about you
- how and why we collect it
- what we do with that information and who we share it with (and when)
- your right to seek access to, and if required correction of, the records we hold about you
- your right to make a privacy complaint, to us and others
- whether we are likely to disclose information about you to overseas recipients.
Amending this Privacy Policy:
This Privacy Policy was last amended on 28th March 2023 and will be reviewed and updated from time to time to ensure that it reflects our current information handling practices and any relevant legislative changes. Inform Physio & Co reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy at any time, with such amendments to take effect from the date of publication of the amended policy on our website www.informphysio.com.au
Jurisdiction:
This Privacy Policy is subject to the laws of Queensland, Australia. You submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Queensland, Australia. This applies regardless of your location when accessing our website or website content.
Collection of information:
We may collect personal information that is reasonably necessary for one or more of our services or activities; or because it is required under relevant law or regulation.
The purpose for which we collect personal information is to provide you the best service experience possible on our website.
We collect and hold the following kind of information about you:
- your name, address, date of birth, email and contact details
- information about your family or relatives
- information about other health professionals involved in your care
- any government identifiers such as Medicare number, DVA number. However, we do not use these for the purposes of identifying you in our practice
- other health information about you such as: a record of your symptoms, your relevant medical history, the diagnosis made and the treatment we give you:
- specialist reports
- test results
- your appointment and billing details
- your prescriptions
- your healthcare identifier
- your help fund details
- other information about you collected for the purposes of providing care to you.
This information is kept and treated as confidential information and will only be used by Inform Physio & Co or our related entities.
We will generally collect personal information directly from you or your authorised representative face-to-face, over the phone, via, emails, meetings or using tools such as the internet and social media platforms, and online forms. We may collect information from a third party where we are permitted by law to do that (eg. other health care professionals involved in your care, from your health insurer, from the My Health Record system etc.). There may be some instances where personal information about you will be collected from a third party, a publicly available source or by other lawful means, but only if:
(i) you have provided Inform Physio & Co with your consent, or you would reasonably expect us to be able to access or collect your personal information; or
(ii) it is necessary for a specific purpose such as executing a function or activity in connection with your dealings with Inform Physio & Co and/or
(iii) we are permitted, or required to, by applicable law.
You may choose to not identify yourself or use a pseudonym when dealing with Inform Physio & Co, except where this is impractical or where the law or a court order provides otherwise.
If the personal information you provide to us is incomplete or inaccurate, we may be unable to provide you or your authorised representative with the requested services and/or information.
We primarily collect and use personal information about you to provide our physiotherapy services to you and to communicate with you and others involved in your care in relation to those services. We also sometimes use that information for other purposes, including:
- to help us manage our accounts and administrative services, including billing, arrangements with health funds, pursuing unpaid accounts, management of our IT systems and
- to conduct accreditation, quality assurance or internal audits.
We do not propose to disclose information about you to anyone overseas. If we want to transfer
your personal information overseas, we will first seek your consent, unless we are required by
law to do the transfer.
Storage of information:
We may store your information in hard copy or electronic format and keep it in storage facilities that we own and operate ourselves, or that are owned and operated by our service providers.
Internet users:
If you access our website or social media sites, we may collect additional personal information about you including but not limited to your name, intellectual property address and domain name. Our website uses cookies. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and to prepare customised web pages tailored to them. Cookies do not identify you personally, but they may link back to a database record about you. We use cookies to monitor usage of our website and to create a record of when you visit our website and what pages you view so that we may serve you more effectively. Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of linked websites and linked websites which are not subject to our Privacy Policy.
We partner with Microsoft Clarity and Microsoft Advertising to capture how you use and interact with our website through behavioral metrics, heatmaps, and session replay to improve and market our products/services. Website usage data is captured using first and third-party cookies and other tracking technologies to determine the popularity of products/services and online activity. Additionally, we use this information for site optimization, fraud/security purposes, and advertising. For more information about how Microsoft collects and uses your data, visit the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
How we deal with unsolicited information:
Sometimes we receive unsolicited information from individuals or from other sources. If we determine that we could not have collected the information for one or more of our functions or activities, we will take reasonably practicable steps to de-identify or destroy the information. Alternatively, we will take reasonable steps to protect the information from misuse or unauthorised disclosure. Disclosure of unsolicited information we hold may be carried out where required or permitted by law.
Use and disclosure of personal information:
The personal information that we collect and hold about you depends on your interaction with us. Generally, we will only collect and hold your personal information where it is reasonably necessary for us to establish and/or maintain a relationship with you. We will use your personal information (including sensitive information) for the primary purpose it was collected, or if your personal information is to be used for a secondary purpose, it will be used:
(i) to provide services to you;
(ii) to facilitate our internal business operations;
(iii) to advise you of the services we provide;
(iv) to analyse our services and customer needs with a view to developing new or improved services; and/or
(v) because disclosure or use is required or authorised by law.
We do not sell personal information, and we do not provide your personal information to third parties unless one or more of the following situations apply:
(i) you would reasonably expect, or have been advised that your personal information may be used or disclosed;
(ii) if the use or disclosure is required by lawful authority; and/or
(iii) if the use of disclosure relates to one or more of the prescribed ‘general permitted situations’ under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (“Privacy Act”), including, but not limited to, a serious and imminent threat to somebody’s life or health, or if it is reasonably necessary for law enforcement.
We may disclose information about you to others outside of our practice as permitted or required under law. This will include situations where we disclose information about you in order:
i. to comply with our legal obligations (eg. mandatory reporting under legislation, responding to a court order or subpoena)
ii. to consult with other health professionals involved in your healthcare
iii. to get test results from diagnostic and pathology services to claim on insurance
iv. to communicate with your health fund, with government and other regulatory bodies such as Medicare
v. to help us manage our accounts and administrative services (eg. billing or debt recovery, arrangements with health funds, pursuing unpaid accounts etc.)
vi. to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or a serious threat to public health or safety
vii. to help in locating a missing person
viii. to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim through the My Health Record
ix. to prepare the defence of anticipated or existing legal proceedings
x. to discharge notification obligations to liability insurers.
When marketing to you, your personal information may be used or disclosed for our own purposes. You may opt out of Inform Physio & Co’s direct marketing to you. Inform Physio & Co’s direct marketing materials will explain how to you can do this.
Protection of information:
We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the information we hold about you is relevant, accurate, up-to-date and complete. We take reasonable and practicable steps to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, modification, disclosure, interference or unauthorised access.
This includes:
i. holding information in a lockable cabinet
ii. holding information on an encrypted database
iii. holding information in secure cloud storage
iv. getting staff to sign confidentiality documents
v. providing staff with training or induction etc. about confidentiality and (in particular) security issues
vi. access to information restricted on a ‘need to know’ basis and
vii. strong password protections when accessing the information on a computer.
When your personal information is no longer required for the purposes for which it was collected, we will take all reasonable and practicable steps to de-identify or destroy the information in a secure manner.
Sale of the business:
If Inform Physio & Co merges with, or is acquired by, another business, or sells all or a portion of its assets, your personal information may be disclosed to our advisers and any prospective purchaser’s adviser, and may be among the assets transferred. However, personal information will always remain subject to this Privacy Policy.
Accessing your personal information:
In accordance with relevant Australian Privacy Principles, you can request that we provide you with access to information we hold about you. You can contact us by submitting a request in writing to the address below. If we are able to, we will action your request within a reasonable time frame following receipt of your request.
We may decline a request for access to personal information in circumstances prescribed by the Privacy Act as amended from time to time. If complying with your request for access or amendment requires considerable time and expense on our part, we may charge you a reasonable fee for providing you with information. If we are unable to agree to your request, we will provide you with an appropriate explanation.
Correcting your personal information:
You can request that we correct any personal information we hold about you, that is out-of-date, incorrect, incomplete or misleading. You can contact us by submitting a request in writing to our email address [insert email address]. If we are able to, we will action your request within a reasonable time frame following receipt of your request. We may decline a request to correct the personal information in circumstances prescribed by the Privacy Act as amended from time to time.
Contact us about your privacy:
If you require further information about this Privacy Policy, Inform Physio & Co’s management of your personal information, or if you think we may not have complied with any aspect of this Privacy Policy, please contact us in writing at the address set out below. We will then try to respond to you within 30 days.
Inform Physio & Co
2/16 Taree Street
Burleigh Heads, QLD, Australia, 4220
[email protected]
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can refer your complaint to the Office of the
Australian Information Commission, whose contact details are:
Phone: 1300 363 992
Email: [email protected]
Post: GPO Box 5218 Sydney New South Wales 2001
Website: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints/