Privacy Policy
Norwest Anaesthesia is committed to the protection of your privacy when you visit our web site (www.norwestanaesthesia.com.au) (the "Site"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and disclose your personal information, how this information is protected, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how you may make a complaint about a breach of privacy legislation.
We are committed to ensuring that information provided to us is handled in a responsible, secure and confidential manner. By accessing our site, you accept the terms and conditions expressed herein, including consent to the collection and use of your personal information. If you do not agree to these provisions, you should immediately terminate your access to and not use the Site. We reserve the right to amend this policy at our sole discretion and without notice from time to time. We encourage you to regularly review this statement to inform yourself of any amendments.
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Norwest Anaesthesia has developed this policy to protect patient privacy in compliance with both state and federal privacy legislation.
What information do we collect and store?
When you visit our web site, we may collect personally identifiable information that is necessary and relevant to provide you with anaesthetic services and manage our anaesthetic practice. The type of information we may collect and hold includes your: Name, address, date of birth, email, contact details, age, gender, medicare number, health fund or DVA number, health fund/insurance remittance advice, and credit card /direct debit details. We may also collect other health information including: relevant health history, family history, surgical procedures, and treating hospital. We may at times also need to collect information from other sources such as treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals, other health care providers, medicare or health insurer and the Myhealth record system. We generally collect personal information directly from the patient by email, online form, over the phone, or in person. Occasionally we may have to collect this information from relatives or carers. This information may be collected by medical and non-medical staff. This information may be stored on our computer medical records system (on site and/or in the cloud) and/or in handwritten medical records. We may be required by law to retain medical records for certain periods of time depending on your age at the time we provide services.
When you visit our web site, we also automatically collect non-personally identifiable information. This information includes the unique Internet address assigned to your computer (IP address), your Internet service provider, your operating system, your browser type and version, domain names, date and time of visit, pages viewed, and referring website addresses.
Norwest Anaesthesia may also contact you via surveys or feedback forms to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered.
How do we use the information collected from you?
In general, we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information to provide a health service to the patient and to communicate with them in relation to the health service being provided to them; to manage our accounts and administration services, including billing, arrangements with health funds and pursuing unpaid accounts; for consultation with other doctors and allied health professionals involved in the healthcare of the patient; for identification and insurance claiming; to liaise with health fund, government and regulatory bodies such as Medicare and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs; to comply with our legal obligations; and to maintain quality of the service we provide. Patients have the right to seek access to and correct personal information we hold about them.
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Non-personally identifiable information is collected to provide general statistics regarding use of our web site, allowing us to analyse how our website is used so as to improve the quality of the content and service the web site provides.
Disclosure of information collected
Norwest Anaesthesia will treat your personal information as strictly private and confidential. We will only use or disclose it for purposes directly related to the provision of anaesthetic services and for your ongoing care and treatment as outlined above. We may disclose such personal information to independent contractors, service providers and consultants who are engaged by or working with Norwest Anaesthesia. We may use collected information to maintain contact with you via phone calls, e-mail, SMS or mail correspondence. There are circumstances where we may be permitted or required by law to disclose your personal information to third parties. For example, to Medicare, Police, insurers, solicitors, government regulatory bodies, tribunals, courts of law, hospitals, IT service provider, debt collection agents, the electronic transfer of prescriptions service or to the Myhealth record system. We may also from time to time provide statistical data to third parties for research purposes.
We may also use the information for marketing purposes, such as promotions, informing you of new products and services, or website changes. In addition, Norwest Anaesthesia may share data with trusted business partners or affiliates to help us perform statistical analysis, or provide you with a promotion or service offering that may be or interest to you.
Norwest Anaesthesia does not sell, trade, rent or lease the collected information to third parties.
We will not disclose to unaffiliated companies any Personally identifiable information we gather from you, except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as disclosed to you at the time you provide such information.
All third parties who obtain access to such information are requested to comply with the terms of this Privacy Policy and are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide services to Norwest Anaesthesia, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information. If Norwest Anaesthesia or substantially all of its assets are acquired, information you have provided to us will be one of the assets that is transferred.
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Overseas Disclosure
We may disclose your personal information to overseas insurance providers.
Are "Cookies" used on the website?
Norwest Anaesthesia website uses "cookies" to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file or piece of information that a web site places on your computer hard disk. The stored information retains your preferences for the particular web site, making your return visit to the web site more useful and personalised, providing you with a more convenient, time saving and better service. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.
Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, you may not be able to take full advantage of the interactive features of the Norwest Anaesthesia website if you do so.
Data Quality and Security
We aim to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, up to date and relevant. We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.
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All due care is taken in protecting the security, confidentiality and privacy of the information provided by you. Personal information that we hold is protected from misuse, loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure by:
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Passwords to protect electronic information and databases;
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Secure cloud storage;
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Intrusion monitoring such as firewalls and virus protection;
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Use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol;
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Secure premises with 24 hour back-to-base monitoring.
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Locked cabinets and rooms for the storage of physical records.
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Signed confidentiality agreements by all staff;
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Secure confidential waste destruction.
Whilst we will take all due care in protecting information submitted by you, we cannot guarantee that our systems will be completely free from third party interception or damage to information transmitted by email which is caused by viruses.
Norwest Anaesthesia web site may contain links to other external non-Norwest Anaesthesia web sites. Norwest Anaesthesia is not responsible for the privacy statements, data collection practices or other content of such sites.
Opting out of correspondence
If you do not wish to receive any marketing material from us or be entered on our mailing list, there will be an easy means to opt out of further correspondence, such as clicking the unsubscribe link on the mailout.
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Access to information
You are entitled to request access to your records. We request that you put your request in writing and we will respond to it within a reasonable time.
Complaints and Feedback about Privacy Policy
If you have a complaint or any feedback about the privacy of your personal information, we request that you contact us in writing. Upon receipt of your query, we will attempt to respond promptly.
Contact
Please direct any queries, feedback, complaints, requests for access to records to:
Norwest Anaesthesia
PO Box 6405 Norwest NSW 2153
admin@norwestanaesthesia.com.au
Ph: 02 8865 4702
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You can also contact us through the feedback form available on our Site.
Effective Date: 1st of July, 2022