Introduction
This Policy describes the handling of personal information collected by Enhance Hearing Care Enhance Hearing Care recognises the importance of and is committed to the protection of personal privacy. Enhance Hearing Care is bound by the Privacy Act 1988, the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) and the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 which govern personal and medical information collected by our business. This Policy has been developed as part of Enhance Hearing Care’s ongoing commitment to the protection of the privacy of individuals with whom it deals.
The information in this Policy relates to Enhance Hearing Care’s current privacy standards. Enhance Hearing Care may vary these standards from time to time. Any variation will be reflected in the Policy. Enhance Hearing Care encourages individuals to check this Policy from time to time to ensure they are aware of the most up to date privacy standards applying to the handling of their personal information.
Objectives
The objectives of this Policy are to:
Establish a set of privacy standards to which Enhance Hearing Care will comply to protect the privacy of individuals whose personal information Enhance Hearing Care collects, uses, discloses, stores or handles. Demonstrate Enhance Hearing Care’s ongoing commitment to protecting privacy and to address any privacy concerns individuals may have arising from its functions and activities; Describe the manner in which Enhance Hearing Care collects, uses, discloses, stores and handles personal information; Ensure that Enhance Hearing Care complies with its obligations under the relevant privacy legislation; Keep up to date and comply with any future developments in privacy protection.
Administration
Enhance Hearing Care Information
Our Welcome to Enhance Hearing Care Client Information Forms which we require every client to read and complete, informs our clients of the current Privacy related policies, rights and requirements.
New Client Registration
At Enhance Hearing Care, we request that all new clients complete a “Client Information Form”.
Telephone Confidentiality
Communication with clients via the telephone must be conducted with appropriate regard to the privacy and confidentiality of the patient and their health information.
Ongoing education and training on confidentiality is provided to all staff and is included in the Staff Induction Program.
If personal and health information needs to be discussed or collected over the phone, the call is transferred to a private room or area so that other clients or persons cannot hear the conversation.
If a person calls to ask if a family member or friend is or has been at Enhance Hearing Care, they must be advised that our organisation abides by a strict privacy and confidentiality policy and therefore no such information is disclosed.
Client Records and Confidentiality
It is Enhance Hearing Care policy that each client has their own individual file which contains information to enhance continuity of care. Information should include:
• Clinical information relating to the client
• Contact and demographic information including the patient’s full name, date of birth, gender and contact details
• Medicare/Pension and Veteran Affairs details where applicable
The Privacy Act require Enhance Hearing Care to obtain the consent of all clients to collect personal information and medical history. This also applies to the collection of information from other professionals associated with the health care of the client.
The main purpose for collecting and using client information is to provide the best possible health care. Information regarding a client’s medical and family history is needed to provide the appropriate tests.
To ensure the highest quality and continuity of care, clients health information may need to be shared with other health and allied health providers and administrators from time to time.
All clients are entitled to obtain access to their personal information that we hold. If a client does wish to access their information Enhance Hearing Care is required to inform the client’s referring doctor of such request.
Recall System
Enhance Hearing Care has a recall system to ensure continued customer service to those Clients identified by our Audiologists and as part of our compliance to the Australian Government Hearing Services Program Contract.
Retention of Records and Archiving
Enhance Hearing Care refers to the relevant legislation regarding the length of time client health records must be kept. At minimum, client health records must be kept until the client is 25 years of age, if a child, or a minimum of 7 years following the last year of the clients attendance, whichever is greater.
Enhance Hearing Care has a process in place for identifying, culling, storing and retrieving inactive client records. For further information and instruction refer to the “Frame work for Clinical Management” .
Request for Release of Medical Information
In general, the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000 provides clients with access to their own personal records only and does not provide automatic access to the medical records of other family members including children.
Request for access to assessment results of family members are assessed individually according to the client’s age and circumstances. Clients must collect their assessment results at the time of their appointment, or if at a time after their appointment they must collect in person at an Enhance Hearing Care clinic upon supply of proof of identity.
Third Party Arrangements
Where a client is referred to Enhance Hearing Care through a third-party arrangement where the third party is primarily entitled to receive the clinical reports and results, an individual may request their information in writing directly to the respective third party.
Your personal information may be shared with third parties for the provision of financial services, if and to the extent that customers chose to use such services.
Complaints
The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) provides that an individual may complain if he/she believes that a privacy breach has occurred.
Enhance Hearing Care Hearing is committed to respecting the privacy of any personal information it holds and will endeavour to resolve any privacy complaints that may arise. Individuals should contact Enhance Hearing Care Hearing directly to make a complaint. Individuals may also complain to the federal Privacy Commissioner. The Commissioner will investigate and, if appropriate, conciliate privacy complaints.
Changes to Policy
Enhance Hearing Care Hearing may, from time to time, review and update this privacy policy statement to take account of new laws and technology and changes to Enhance Hearing Care Hearing’s operations.
What Personal Data we Collect and Why we Collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form,
and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What Right You Have Over Your Data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Third Party
Your personal information may be shared with third parties for the provision of financial services, if and to the extent that customers chose to use such services.
