Privacy and Fee Consent Statement
To enable ongoing care and total quality improvement within this practice and in keeping with the Privacy Act (1988) and the Australian Privacy Principles , we wish to provide you with sufficient information on how your personal health information may be used or disclosed.
Your personal health information will only be used for the purposes for which it was collected, or as otherwise permitted or requested by law and we respect your right to determine how your personal health information is used or disclosed.
Information collection and storage
Medical care requires full knowledge of patient health information by all members of the medical team. To ensure quality and continuity of patient care, patient’s health information may be shared with other healthcare providers/diagnostic facilities from time to time. Some information about patients is also provided to Medicare and Private Health Funds, if relevant, for legal, billing and Medicare rebate purposes.
All clinical consultation notes and identifying information about you is stored in a password protected environment on a web-based clinical software program called Clinic to Cloud. This information is only accessible to your clinician, and authorised practice personnel upon whom we depend, in order to provide you with the service. Under Medicare requirements, clinicians are required to write back to referrers within certain timeframes during the course of treatment, hence some information about you may be shared with your referrer. Please advise upfront if this is of concern to you.
If you accept a referral to another clinician within the practice or externally, you are consenting to your clinician sharing information about you with the new clinician. You are entitled to access and correct your personal information kept on file at any stage, subject to exceptions in the relevant legislation.
By ticking the box, you (as a patient or a guardian) are consenting, that on obtaining your personal health information it may be used or disclosed by the practice for the following purposes:
- follow up reminder/recall notices for treatment;
- for accounting procedures and the collection of professional fees;
- the diagnosis and treatment of any health condition, including the communication of relevant information, to practice staff, specialists and other healthcare providers to ensure quality care is provided;
- For legal related disclosures as required by Court of Law;
- For the purposes of research, teaching and supervision where de-identified information is used;
- For disease notification as required by law;
At all times, we are required to ensure your details are treated with the utmost confidentiality. Your records are very important and we will take all steps necessary to ensure they remain confidential.
Limitations to privacy
We will not share information with parents, partners, employers, insurers, or other people without your consent. Sometimes, it is helpful for your recovery to include trusted loved ones in your treatment and/or to share information with other health care providers – this would be done only with your consent. However, there are exceptions under the legislation where we may share information without your consent.
Examples might be if we believe you are at serious risk of causing significant harm to the life, health or safety of yourself or someone else, if a child we can identify is at serious risk of harm from you or from someone else, or if we are ordered to do so by a court or other legislative body, (e.g., hostile custody disputes, insurance legal claims). Under these circumstances, your clinician would make every effort to discuss this with you, first.
On some occasions we may seek advice from respected colleagues so as to provide the best possible level of care. We may also discuss various cases from time to time for the purpose of ongoing education. In these situations, we do not allow our colleagues to see your file notes and we do not reveal your name or identifying details. Such discussions between clinicians are vital for ongoing professional development and education. Sometimes, clinicians share with patients and peers some observations they have made regarding symptoms and recovery strategies of other patients. As clinicians, we gain new learning each time we engage in therapy with a new person. This new learning informs how we help others, but the sharing of information is done in a way that does not identify any individual.
Limitations of Telepsychiatry
Due to the nature of Telepsychiatry we will be unable to:
- Provide Crisis intervention.
- Care of children and adolescents under the age of 16.
- Provide assessments of patients who are in hospital.
We are required to outline the risks of a Telehealth consult. Potential risks include, but may not be limited to: information transmitted may not be sufficient (poor resolution of video); delays in medical evaluation and treatment due to deficiencies or failures of the equipment; security protocols can fail, causing a breach of privacy; and a lack of access to all the information available in a face to face visit may result in errors in medical judgement.
Alternatives to Telepsychiatry include traditional face to face sessions. If you have any issues with your Telepsychiatry session please free to contact us on 0456088871 or by admin@nardineelzahaby.com.au and we will endeavour to help you with your complaint or direct you to the appropriate service.
Privacy in online communications
To maintain privacy and confidentiality during telehealth (phone or video) consultations, we recommend that you have a private space where you cannot be overheard, and where you can concentrate on the session (e.g. not having responsibility for children at the same time where possible).
Your clinician will also use these settings and will never record a telehealth session to maintain your privacy. Your clinician will ask you to respect their privacy by agreeing not to make recordings of your sessions and not to use materials from our sessions for purposes other than therapy. If you wish to record sessions or use session material for other purposes, you must seek your clinician’s consent to do so.
Please be aware that information transmitted by email is also potentially vulnerable to interception and can never be made 100% secure. Despite this, it may be necessary for us to communicate with you by email, for example to transmit documents such as this form, invoices and therapy information. To increase your privacy when using email, please ensure that any email contains minimal personal information.
By ticking the box, you are acknowledging that you have read this document and you agree with the content.