Privacy Policy for My Mind Matters Therapy Pty Ltd – Allied Health Practice

1. Purpose

A.    In this document we set out the privacy policy of My Mind Matters Therapy ABN 96 670 910 237 for Allied Health Practice (referred to in this document as “the Privacy Policy”) is to explain to you how My Mind Matters Therapy Pty Ltd. (referred to in this document as “My Mind Matters Therapy”, “we”, “us” or “our”) uses, collects and manages personal information, including but not limited to your health information from our clients and the circumstances in which we may share such information with third parties.

B.    The Privacy Act was amended in 2014 by the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 and with effect from 22 February 2018, these amendments require My Mind Matters Therapy to report eligible data breaches that are likely to cause serious harm.

C.    1My Mind Matters Therapy’s Allied Health Practice is a health service provider and we are required to comply and abide with The Australian Privacy Principles (referred to in this document as “APP”) which has been enacted in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (referred to in this document as the “Privacy Act”).

D.    The APP regulates how we may collect, use, disclose, divulge and store your personal and health information which we retain with regards to our patients.

2.  Defined Terms

A.    In this Privacy Policy, we adopt the definitions in Section 6 of the Privacy Act, which may change from time to time, of the terms which we set out below;

3.  Personal Information

Personal information means all information and opinion including but not limited to personal and health information about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:

• whether the information or opinion is true or not; and

• whether the information and opinion is recorded in a material form or not: Health Information means all information and opinion about:

• the health and disability (at any time) of an individual; or

• an individual’s expressed wishes about the future provisions of health services to him or her; or

• a health service provided or to be provided to an individual that is also personal information; or

• other personal information collected to provide, or in providing, a health service.

4.  Sensitive Information

Sensitive Information would include information or an opinion about an individual’s:

• racial or ethnic origin; or

• political opinions; or

• membership of a political association; or

• religious beliefs or affiliations; or

• philosophical beliefs; or

• membership of a professional or trade association; or

• membership of a trade union; or

• sexual orientation or practices; or

• criminal record

that shall be deemed also as personal information; or

• health information about an individual; or

• genetic information about an individual that is not otherwise health information; or

• biometric information that is to be used for the purposes of automated biometric verification or biometric identification; or

• biometric templates.

For the avoidance of any doubt, reference in this Privacy Policy to personal and health information is a collective reference to Personal Information and Health Information as herein defined in clause 2 above.

5.  Patient Anonymity and Pseudonymity

A.   Where it is lawful and practicable to do so by virtue of any rules, regulations or laws our clients may deal with us anonymously or by using a pseudonym. An example of this, would be when you make a general inquiry about the services we provide or offer to its clients without providing us with personal or health information.

Why we collect, use, hold and share information and opinion about you

My Mind Matters Therapy’s Allied Health Practice only collects and holds personal and health information about our clients that is deemed reasonably fit and necessary for us to:

• provide our clients with allied health services; or

• contact our clients to provide advice or information in relation to the why in which the service will be provided; or

• administer and manage those services including charging, billing and collecting debts; and

• as required by Australian legislation

6. Types of information we collect and store about you.

A.   We may collect personal and health information from third parties including, but not limited to:

• our client’s parent, guardian, legal advisor or other authorised representative; or

• other health service providers that our patient has attended; or

• other health professionals that have seen our clients, or

• a client’s family member; or

• other persons or organisations that possess personal and health information reasonably required by My Mind Matters Therapy to assist us in providing health services to our clients.

B.   The type of information that we collect about our patients include, but is not limited, to the following;

• your name,

• address,

• email address,

• telephone number,

• gender,

• date of birth,

• occupation,

• payment method(s),

• medicare details,

• health fund details,

• medical referrer,

• any other personal and health information that is reasonably deemed fit and necessary for the provision of allied health services.

C.   My Mind Matters Therapy will not collect Sensitive Information about a client unless;

• prior consent to the collection of that type of information and that information is reasonably necessary for the provision of allied health services.

• if we are required or authorised to do so pursuant to any Australian law, rules or regulations.

7.  How we hold your information.

A.    We store your personal and health information in hard copy and electronic form including but not limited in its practice database software and no matter in which form your personal and health information is stored, the terms of this Privacy Policy will be applicable to that information.

9.  How do we use your information.

A.    We only use your personal and health information for the purposes you have given that information to us unless disclosure of your personal and health information is required for the purposes of:

• continuity of care with other health service providers involved in our client’s therapy or diagnostic services; or

• providing a client with further information about therapy options; or

• conveying information to a responsible person including a parent, guardian or spouse when a client cannot communicate, unless the client has requested otherwise;

• conveying information to close family members in accordance with the recognised customs of medical practice; or

• management, funding, service monitoring, planning, evaluation and compliant handlings; or

• legislative and regulatory compliance; or

• quality assurance or clinical audit activities; or

• accreditation activities; or

• health insurance funding; or

• billing and debt recovery; or

• addressing liability indemnity arrangements including reporting to our insurers and legal representatives.

• preparing the defence for anticipated or existing legal proceedings; or

• research or the compilation or analysis of statistics relevant to public health and safety; and

• activities directly related to the provision of health services to an individual where the individual would reasonably expect disclosure.

B.   Independent Contractors - We may outsource our services or hire contractors to perform professional services within our Allied Health Practice and if we do so we require all contractors to comply with the Privacy Act and our Privacy Policy.

C.   Direct Marketing - We may also use your information for other purposes such as including you on a marketing mail list, you can opt out to marketing emails.

10.  Access to and correction of your information.

A.   All client’s files that include personal and health information are the property of My Mind Matters Therapy.

B.   You have the right to have access to the personal and health information that we hold in your health record subject to certain legal exceptions, as set out in the APP 12 in relation to Access to Personal Information being.

• we reasonably believe that giving access would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of any individual, or to public health or public safety; or

• giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals; or

• the request for access is considered or deemed frivolous or vexatious; or

• the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings between us and the individual, and would not be accessible by the process of discovery in those proceedings; or

• giving access would reveal the intentions of My Mind Matters Therapy in relation to negotiations with the individual in such a way as to prejudice those negotiations; or

• giving access would be unlawful; or

• denying access is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a Court or Tribunal Order; or

• My Mind Matters Therapy has reasons to suspect that unlawful activity, or misconduct of a serious nature, that relates to ‘My Mind Matters’ functions or activities has been, is being, or may be engaged in and giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to the matter; or

• giving access would be likely to prejudice one or more enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body; or

• giving access would reveal evaluative information generated within the organisation in connection with a commercially sensitive decision-making process.

C.   We may, on your written and signed request, disclose your personal and health information to your legal representative or other authorised representative.

D.   You can also request an amendment to your personal and health information if you believe that information is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading.

E.   We will allow access or make the requested changes unless there is a reason under the Privacy Act or other relevant law to refuse such access or refuse to make the requested changes.

F.   If we do not agree to change your personal and health information in accordance with your request, we will permit you to make a written statement of the requested changes and file a copy of that statement on your medical record.

G.   Should you wish to obtain access to or request changes to your health record you can ask our Privacy Officer (details as stated herein below in clause 14), who can give you more detailed information about My Mind Matters Therapy’s access and correction procedure.

We may charge you a reasonable fee associated with supplying a copy of your personal and health information to you.

11.  Data Quality

A.   We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal and health information that we collect are accurate, up to date and complete.

B.   We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal and health information that we use or disclose, having regard to the purpose of that use or disclosure, is accurate, up to date, complete and relevant.

12.  Data Security

A.   We will take reasonable steps to protect your personal and health information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

B.   If we hold personal and health information about you and we no longer need that information for any purpose for which that information many be used or disclosed, that information is not contained in a Commonwealth record and we are not required by or under an Australian law, or a Court or Tribunal Order, to retain that information, we will take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to destroy that personal and health information or to ensure that information is de- identified.

12.  Identifiers

A.   We assign its own identifiers, being a unique number within our practice database system to identify patients and/or a patient’s parent/guardian and, where appropriate, we collect government identifiers such as Medicare, Health care/Pension Card numbers, Private Health fund membership number etc.

13.  International Disclosure

A.   If we need to communicate to an organisation outside of Australia of a client’s personal and health information in Australia it will only do so if it is reasonably satisfied that the country has a substantially similar privacy regime to Australia You also have the legal right to lodge a complaint in writing to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) by visiting www.oaic.gov.au and using the online Complaint Form or in writing and posted to:

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

GPO Box 5218

Sydney NSW 2001

For further information kindly visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.

14.  Data breaches

Data breach occurs when there is an unauthorised access or disclosure, or loss of personal information held in our practice. This could be an email sent to the wrong person, a loss of laptop containing patients’ personal and health information, or our database being hacked. The practice has an IT consulting company that oversees the security of our database.

We are required to investigate a data breach or suspected/alleged data breach and decide if it is likely to result in serious harm to one or more individuals. We may be able to remedy the negative impact of the breach by retrieving an email sent incorrectly or by having good security in place depending on the type of data breach. In the absence of a remedy, we have the legal obligation to notify the affected clients and the OAIC accordingly.

14.  Complaints

If you have any questions, comments, concerns or would like to make a complaint about how we handle your personal information we hold, please contact us by email providing your name and contact details.

If you wish to access or update your personal information, or please contact us by email.

We will investigate your complaint promptly and respond by email.

Contacting us:

Email: [email protected]

Privacy Policy Version

Our Privacy Policy was last updated on 18th August 2024 and may change from time to time in accordance with changes to the Privacy laws.