Privacy Statement

Manningham General Practice is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to the Manningham General Practice Web site and governs data collection and usage. By using the Manningham General Practice website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement. This privacy policy is to provide information to you, our patient, on how your personal information about you and your health is recorded and managed at Manningham General Practice (MGP) and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties.

Why and when your consent is necessary?

When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for our GPs and practice staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.

Collection of your Personal Information

Manningham General Practice collects personally identifiable information, such as your e-mail address, name, home or work address or telephone number. Manningham General Practice also collects anonymous demographic information, which is not unique to you, such as your ZIP code, age, gender, preferences, interests and favorites.

There is also information about your computer hardware and software that is automatically collected by Manningham General Practice. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring Web site addresses. This information is used by Manningham General Practice for the operation of the service, to maintain quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the Manningham General Practice Web site.

Please keep in mind that if you directly disclose personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data through Manningham General Practice public message boards, this information may be collected and used by others. Note: Manningham General Practice does not read any of your private online communications.

Manningham General Practice encourages you to review the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to from Manningham General Practice so that you can understand how those Web sites collect, use and share your information. Manningham General Practice is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on Web sites outside of the Manningham General Practice and Manningham General Practice family of Web sites.

Why do we collect, use, hold and share your personal information?

Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes (e.g. staff training).

What personal information do we collect?

The information we will collect about you includes your:
• names, date of birth, addresses, contact details
• medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
• Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
• healthcare identifiers

Dealing with us anonymously

You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym, unless it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals.

How do we collect your personal information?

Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways.
1. When you make your first appointment our practice staff will collect your personal and demographic information via your registration.
2. During the course of providing medical services, we may collect further personal information.
Information is collected via electronic transfer prescriptions(eTP), My Health Record, via Sheared Health Summary, Event summary.
3. We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email, telephone us, make an online appointment or communicate with us using social media.
4. In some circumstances, personal information may also be collected from other sources. Often this is because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from:
• your guardian or responsible person
• other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services
your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).

When, why and with whom do we share your personal information

We sometimes share your personal information:
• with third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy
• with other healthcare providers
• when it is required or authorised by law (eg court subpoenas)
• when it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent
• to assist in locating a missing person
• to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim
• for the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process
• when there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (eg some diseases require mandatory notification)
• during the course of providing medical services, through eTP, My Health Record (eg via Shared Health Summary, Event Summary).

Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.
We will not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.
Our practice will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent. If you do consent, you may opt out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing.

How do we store and protect your personal information?

Many progressive medical practices including MGP now maintain medical records on computer systems. We will ensure that any of your personal information that is put on computer will be kept private in the same way as occurs with paper records. This will protect your record from unauthorised access. Our practice stores all personal information securely.

How can you access and correct your personal information at our practice?

You have the right to request access to, and correction of, your personal information. You may ask your doctor about any aspect of your health care including information in your record. We believe that sharing information is important for good communication between you and your doctor and for good health care.
Information in your record can be provided to you by way of an accurate and up to date summary of your care, for instance, if you are moving away and are transferring to a new doctor. Do not hesitate to ask your doctor if you want a summary of your care for any reason. If you request a summary or direct access to your full medical record your doctor will need to take out any information provided by others on a confidential basis. Your doctor will also need to consider the risk of any physical or mental harm to you or any other person which may result from disclosure of your health information.
Your doctor will be pleased to provide a full explanation of the health summary or medical record provided.
Depending on what is involved, you may be asked to contribute to the cost of providing the information.
The right of children to privacy of their health information, based on the professional judgement of the doctor and consistent with the law, might at times restrict access to this information by parents or guardians.
MGP will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate or up to date. From time to time, we will ask you to verify that your personal information held by our practice is correct and current.
If you have any concerns or complaints regarding the privacy of your health information or regarding the accuracy of the information held by MGP, you should discuss these with your doctor. Inaccurate information will be corrected, or your concerns noted in the records if it is not possible or desirable to alter the original record.

How can you lodge a privacy-related complaint, and how will the complaint be handled at our practice?

We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. To info@mgp.net.au alternatively, you can send via post to PO Box 2378 Templestowe Heights 3107.
We will then attempt to resolve it within 30days in accordance with our resolution procedure.
Further information on Privacy Legislation is available from:

Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner 1300 363 992 For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au
Office of the Health Services Commissioner (Victoria) 1300 582 113
Community and Health Services Complaints Office (ACT) 02 6205 2222

Privacy and our website

Patients can also book their appointments via our website through HotDoc which is a cloud-based online platform.
HotDoc Privacy policy can be viewed via the link below: https://www.hotdoc.com.au/practices/privacy-policy/
This aligns with MGP Privacy Policy.

Policy review statement

This privacy policy will be reviewed yearly to ensure it is in accordance with any changes that may occur
Review date 01/01/2020

Use of Cookies

The Manningham General Practice Web site use “cookies” to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize Manningham General Practice pages, or register with Manningham General Practice site or services, a cookie helps Manningham General Practice to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same Manningham General Practice Web site, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the Manningham General Practice features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Manningham General Practice services or Web sites you visit.

Security of your Personal Information

Manningham General Practice secures your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. Manningham General Practice secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other Web sites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

Changes to this Statement

Manningham General Practice will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. Manningham General Practice encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how Manningham General Practice is protecting your information.