Privacy Policy

Coastal Orthopaedic Group

1. Privacy commitment

Coastal Orthopaedic Group Pty Ltd (ACN 138 792 999) (Coastal Orthopaedics) is committed to maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of its patients. In order to safely and effectively provide you with care, Coastal Orthopaedics may collect, use and store personal and health information from you and other health professionals involved in your care in accordance with this Policy.

2. What personal information does Coastal Orthopaedics collect?

The personal information which we collect includes:

Our name, gender and date of birth
Your contact details, including your address, telephone, facsimile and email
Details about your injuries and medical history, including relevant medical imaging details.

You are not required to provide any personal information to Coastal Orthopaedics, but if you do not it may compromise the quality of the health care and treatment given to you.

3. Why does Coastal Orthopaedics collect personal information and how does Coastal Orthopaedics use personal information?

In addition to using your personal and health information to provide you safe, effective and quality health care, Coastal Orthopaedics collects and uses your personal information for the following reasons:

To comply with legal requirements, for example diseases we must notify to health authorities
For disclosure to other health professionals involved in your care, including treating doctors and specialists both inside and outside of Coastal Orthopaedics. This may occur through referral to other doctors, or for medical tests or images
For teaching purposes
For reminder letters and marketing newsletters, which may be sent to you regarding your health care
For billing and administrative purposes, including compliance with Medicare and Health Insurance Commission requirements
For disclosure to medical indemnity organisations if a complaint is made and
Other purposes which you may consent to.

Sometimes, Coastal Orthopaedics facilitates students or research activities, including research and quality assurance activities to improve individual and community health care and practice management. Any personal information used as part of these activities will typically be de-identified (i.e. we will remove details that could identify individual patients).

If information that will identity you is required for use in research or other activities, we will contact you and you will be provided with the opportunity to request that your information is not used.

Other than as described in this section, we will not provide personal information to anyone else, without your prior agreement or otherwise in accordance with the law.

4. How does Coastal Orthopaedics collect personal information?

The personal and health information which Coastal Orthopaedics collects is obtained directly from patients and other health professionals involved in your care.

Coastal Orthopaedics also collects personal information from our website, such as your IP address. Further information about the way in which our website collects and uses personal information can be found at www.coastalorthopaedics.com.au/privacy.html or by contacting us.

Coastal Orthopaedics may use an AI scribe tool to generate correspondence and/or patient file notes. This scribe software records your consultation and generates written notes which our providers then check, confirm and save the final version to your patient file. The scribe tools that we may use may store de-identified and encrypted patient information only in Australia and only for limited periods of time (up to one month).

5. How does Coastal Orthopaedics store and protect the information we hold about you?

We store personal information in hard copy form (e.g. in paper form) and electronically.

We take reasonable steps to protect the security of the personal information we hold, including protections against unauthorised access, modification, disclosure or loss.

Our trained staff are bound by confidentiality agreements regarding the protection of your personal information.

If you wish to request that your personal and health information is stored in hard copy only, you can contact us in writing to make a request.

With your written consent, Coastal Orthopaedics may also contact you by email. All email communication from Coastal Orthopaedics to you which contains sensitive information will be flagged confidential. If you have any concerns about our use of email, please contact us.

6. Coastal Orthopaedics and My Health Record

Coastal Orthopaedics may upon request upload information to your electronic My Health Record. My Health Record is a secure online summary of your health information created by the Commonwealth Government. You can control what goes into it and who is allowed to access it. You can also choose to share your health information with your doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers through your My Health Record.

If you have a privacy complaint which relates to your My Health Record you can contact your local Medicare Service Centre or the Australian Information Commissioner.

7. How can you access your personal information?

If you wish to obtain the personal information that Coastal Orthopaedics holds about you, you can contact us in writing, by email or by telephone and request access to your personal information. Our contact details are set out in Section 8 of this Policy. We will always try to meet your request within a reasonable period of time.

In some circumstances, your request for access may be refused. These circumstances include:

If we no longer hold any personal information about you
If your request is frivolous or vexatious
If the information requested relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings and would not normally be disclosed as part of those proceedings
If providing access would be unlawful and
If refusing access is required or allowed by law.

If we are unable to give you access to the information you have requested, we will give you written reasons for this decision when we respond to your request.

Please be aware that Coastal Orthopaedics may charge fees to process your request for personal information, including:

time spent by administrative staff to provide access at the employee’s hourly rate of pay
time necessarily spent by a medical practitioner to provide access at the practitioner’s ordinary sessional rate and
for photocopying and other disbursements at cost.

8. Correcting your personal information

It is important that the information Coastal Orthopaedics holds about you is accurate and up-to-date.

You are expected to provide us with updates and any changes to your personal information (including change of address, name, telephone number or email address) so that our records for you are always accurate.

We try to ensure that the information that we hold about you is accurate and up-to-date.

If you cease to be an active patient of Coastal Orthopaedics, your personal information will be held for 7 years from the date of your last appointment before it is destroyed.

9. Contact information and resolving your concerns

You can contact Coastal Orthopaedics during our office hours if you have any questions, concerns or complaints about this Privacy Policy or the way in which we collect, store, use or disclose your personal information. We will always try to respond to your questions, concerns or complaints within a reasonable period of time.

If you have any concerns that we may not have complied with this Privacy Policy or the Australian Privacy Principles, please contact our General Manager Mr Ashan Dissanayake, who will investigate your concerns and respond to you.

This Privacy Policy is available on the Coastal Orthopaedics website at www.coastalorthopaedics.com.au. You can also contact us and request a copy of this Policy by mail or email.

Our contact details are set out below:

Contact person: Tamara Hoysted, General Manager
Telephone number: 08 9230 6333
Office address: 25 Queenslea Dve, Claremont, WA 6010
Postal address: PO Box 58, Claremont WA 6910
Email address: admin@coastalorthopaedics.com.au

Coastal Orthopaedics Privacy Policy