With your consent your information may be used and disclosed for purposes such as:

• Account keeping and billing purposes
• Referral to another medical practitioner or health care provider
• Sending of specimens such as blood samples for analysis
• Referral to a hospital for treatment and/or advice
• Advice on treatment options
• The management of our practice
• Quality assurance including developing if a data base for surveillance of treatment outcomes practice accreditation and complaint handling
• To meet our obligations or notification to our medical defence organisation or insurers.
• To prevent or lessen a serious threat to an individuals life health or safety where legally required to do so, such as producing records to court mandatory reporting of child abuse or the notification of diagnosis of certain communicable diseases.

This medical practice collects information from you for the primary purpose of providing quality health care. We require you to provide us with your personal details and medical history so that we may properly assess, diagnose, treat and be proactive in your health care needs. We will use the information you provide in the following ways:

1. Administrative purposes in running our medical practice;
2. Billing purposes, including compliance with Medicare and Health Insurance Commission requirements;
3. Disclosure to others involved in your health care, including treating doctors and specialists outside the medical practice as advised by you.

By agreeing to this privacy policy, you agree to the following.

• I understand the reasons why my information must be collected.
• I understand that I am not obliged to provide any information requested of me, but that my failure to do so might compromise the quality of the health care and treatment given to me.
• I am aware of my right to access the information collected about me, except in some circumstances where access  might legitimately be withheld. I understand I will be given an explanation in these circumstances.
• I understand that if my information is to be used for any purpose other than the above, my consent will be sought.
• I consent to the handling of my information by this practice for the purposes set out above, subject to any limitations on access or disclosure of which I may notify this practice in writing.

As per NSW and Australian government legislation, patients have rights of access to health information held about them by this practice.

Accessing your health information may be as simple as requesting a copy of your latest pathology results from your medical practitioner during the course of a standard medical consultation.

We advise that the following procedure has been developed to ensure that all requests for access are dealt with as fairly and efficiently as possible:

1. All requests for access are required to be made in writing, and addressed to the attention of Dr Corte, Dr Davison or Dr Lawler
2. Requests for access will be acknowledged in writing within 14 days of the receipt of the request.
3. Applicants will be required to complete the standard consent form, and undertake to be bound by the terms of the document.
4. The total time between the receipt of a request for access and the time when access is granted shall not, ordinarily, exceed 30 days. Where it is not possible for access to be granted within 30 days, you will be notified, in writing, of this and advised when access will be granted.
5. Where access is refused to your medical file you will be advised in writing of the reasons for refusal, and your medical practitioner will contact you to discuss whether there are any means by which access may be facilitated.
6. You will not be permitted to remove any of the contents of your medical file from the medical practice. Should you wish to alter or erase information in the medical record, a separate written request must be submitted.
7. Where practicable, a medical practitioner will be present when access is granted to your file so that he or she may go through the contents of your file, and address any concerns that you may have in relation to the information contained within the file. A fee of $300 will be charged in relation to this attendance. We advise that a rebate will not be recoverable from Medicare for this service.
8. Generally patients will be required to collect their records in person. However, in some limited circumstances patients may request that records are provided to another person. This provision will generally only apply where the patient is unable, due to illness or incapacity, to attend the practice in person.
9. If you are collecting a copy of your medical record, or are authorised to collect the record of another person, you may be required to provide identification. Where possible this should be photographic identification.

Should you have any queries in relation to the above our practice staff are happy to address these for you.

Should you wish to make an application for access please approach our reception staff and they will assist you in getting under way with your application.