The Practice Privacy Policy

We take your privacy seriously.

We are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and the Health Records Act Victoria 2001.

Our Privacy Policy outlines how we use and manage your health information. A Notice to Patients is posted in our patient waiting area as a summary statement of the Policy.

We collect health information directly from you and your authorised representatives to provide you with dental treatment.

Personal information such as your name, address, health insurance and financial details are used for the purpose of addressing accounts to you, as well as for processing payments, collecting unpaid invoices via an external collection agency, and writing to you about our services and any issues affecting your health care.

Whilst this practice is undertaking accreditation, some of your details may be released to the accrediting agency. The accreditation agency is also bound by the Privacy Act. We may de-identify and use your information and data for research, evaluation and benchmarking purposes.

We may also collect health information from a third party such as a health fund or referrer.

We will only collect your e-mail address if you send us a message or you provide us with your address directly. It will only be used for the purpose for which you provided it. You have the option of having your email address deleted from our records at any time.

If you choose not to provide us with information relevant to your care, we may not be able to provide a service to you, or the service we are asked to provide may not be appropriate for your needs.

Importantly, you could suffer some harm or other adverse outcome if you do not provide information relevant to your care.

Our Internet Service Provider makes a record of your visit to our practice website and logs the following information for our reference: your IP address; the date, time and duration of your visit to the site; the pages you accessed and documents downloaded; the referring site; and the type of browser you are using. Your ISP may collect more or less information for you.

This non-identified information is used to monitor usage patterns on our site in order to improve navigation and design features – helping you to get information more easily.

Our website contains links to other websites. We are not responsible for other websites' privacy practices, and care should be taken when providing personal information on any website.

This website uses session cookies.

All staff employed in this practice are required to undergo training to understand their responsibilities in maintaining your privacy and to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to protect your personal information.

The purpose of collecting your information is to provide you with a dental service; for internal and external administrative purposes, insurance purposes and record keeping.

We will not use your health information for any other purpose unless one of the following applies:

The practice takes steps to ensure that the health information we collect is accurate, up to date and complete. These steps include maintaining and updating personal and health information when you attend the practice or you advise us that your personal information has changed.

The practice keeps hard-copy, electronic records or a hybrid of both.

We protect them by ensuring hard-copy records are kept in locked files and there are security processes in place regarding computer access. Electronic data is backed-up.

We have deployed the following security measures to support more secure communication of sensitive information across the Internet:

You can request access to your health or personal information we hold, or request that we change that information.

Requests for access or correction must be in writing and directed to the Practice Manager.

You can access or make changes to your health or personal information unless we consider that there is a sound reason under the Privacy Act, or other relevant law to withhold the information, or not make the changes.

After a period of 7 years (and if you attended the practice as a child, you have reached the age of 25) we may destroy your records in accordance with applicable laws.

Our practice may use your information for the purpose of direct marketing; however, we will not on-sell your personal information.

We understand that you may not wish to receive marketing materials. If you would prefer not to receive such information, please approach the Practice Manager or another staff member at the practice.

If you suspect there has been or may have been a breach of your privacy, you can complain directly to the Practice Manager. (See Enquiries below).

We take complaints very seriously.

You can lodge a complaint in a number of ways: by phone, email, in writing or in person. Your complaint will be reviewed in house.

Any appropriate corrective action required to manage this breach and any preventive actions required in order to prevent breach in future will be discussed and decided.

You will be sent a letter explaining the review process and the consequences of the review.

In the event of a privacy breach, we will comply with applicable guidelines issued by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

For more information about Privacy laws, or to raise concerns about any matter not satisfactorily resolved with the practice you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (www.oaic.gov.au or ph. 1300 363 992).

Privacy and general complaints about your care can also be directed to the Health Services Commissioner.

For further information about the practice's management of privacy, please contact our Practice Manager, Karen Dillon on 9817 7144.