PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy sets out our commitment to protecting the privacy of personal information provided to us, or otherwise collected by us, offline or online, including through our website: www.newleafdentists.com.au (Site). In this Privacy Policy we, us or our means The Coast Dentists Pty Limited (Trading as “New Leaf Dentists) ABN 21 605 920 376.

Introduction

This Privacy Policy provides information to you, our patient, on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, 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 dental practitioners and practice staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible dental care. 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 generally seek additional consent from you to do this, unless obtaining your consent is not practical or reasonable, and an exception under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) applies.

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

Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide dental services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your dental 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:

· name/s, date of birth, address/es, contact details (e.g. telephone, email), family contact information

· details of your oral health condition and the treatment/s and service/s you have received

· details of your general health (e.g. medications, allergies, medical conditions) and medical history that may impact the dental treatment you receive

· private health insurance information

· Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes

· information regarding other funding sources, where relevant (e.g. Child Dental Benefits Schedule, Department of Veterans’ Affairs)

· information on workers’ compensation, motor vehicle and other accident claims, where relevant

· healthcare identifiers, where relevant.

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.

General inquiries may be made anonymously or under a pseudonym. However, due to the nature of our services, we are required to identify each individual as we begin their dental treatment at our practice.

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 information via your registration.

2. During the course of providing dental services, we may collect further personal information.

3. We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS, 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 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 information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs

· with other healthcare providers

· when it is required or authorised by law (e.g. 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 (e.g. some diseases require mandatory notification)

Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing dental 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. However, in certain cases, it may be necessary to engage with a third party outside of Australia in relation to your treatment (eg laboratory). In these instances, a separate consent form will be presented to you.

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?

We are committed to ensuring that the personal information we collect is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the personal information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

Our practice stores all personal information securely and are inaccessible by the general public. All workers (staff and contractors) who have access to this information during the course of their employment are bound by confidentiality agreements in their employment contracts.

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.

Our practice acknowledges patients may request access to their personal and health information. We ask that you put this request in writing to your attending dentist via our practice email address or hard copy correspondence and our practice will respond within 21 days. There will be no charge made for requesting the information, however, fees may be levied to cover any additional administration costs or the production of reports by the attending dentist.

Our practice 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. You may also request that we correct or update your information, and to assist us with attending to your request we would prefer you to make such requests in writing to reception@newleafdentists.com.au or by completing a personal details/medical history update form when you visit our practice. For legal reasons, original notes will be retained by the practice.

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. We will then attempt to resolve your issue/s in accordance with our resolution procedure. You may address your concerns to our management via email to reception@newleafdentists.com.au, or via letter addressed to our General Manager at New Leaf Dentists, Shop 2, Erina Plaza, 210 Central Coast Highway, Erina, NSW 2250. We will investigate your complaint and respond to you, in writing, setting out the outcome of our investigation and the steps we will take to deal with your complaint within 30 days.

You may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). The OAIC may decide not to investigate your complaint if you have not raised it with the practice first. If you have lodged a complaint with us, and we have not responded within 30 days or you are dissatisfied with our response, you may then take your complaint to the OAIC. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.

Privacy and our website

Collection and use of personal information

We may collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for the following purposes:

· for internal record keeping and administrative purposes;

· for analytics, market research and business development, including to operate and improve our Site, associated applications and associated social media platforms;

· to comply with our legal obligations and resolve any disputes that we may have.

Storage and security

We cannot guarantee the security of any information that is transmitted to or by us over the Internet. The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk. Although we take measures to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that the personal information we collect will not be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

Cookies and web beacons

We may use cookies on our Site from time to time. Cookies are text files placed in your computer's browser to store your preferences. Cookies, by themselves, do not tell us your email address or other personally identifiable information. However, they do allow third parties, such as Google and Facebook, to cause our advertisements to appear on your social media and online media feeds as part of our retargeting campaigns. If and when you choose to provide our Site with personal information, this information may be linked to the data stored in the cookie.

We may use web beacons on our Site from time to time. Web beacons (also known as Clear GIFs) are small pieces of code placed on a web page to monitor the visitor’s behaviour and collect data about the visitor’s viewing of a web page. For example, web beacons can be used to count the users who visit a web page or to deliver a cookie to the browser of a visitor viewing that page.

Links to other websites

Our Site may contain links to other websites. We do not have any control over those websites and we are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any personal information which you provide whilst visiting those websites. Those websites are not governed by this Privacy Policy.

Policy review statement

This policy will be reviewed regularly. We may, at any time and at our discretion, vary this Privacy Policy by publishing the amended Privacy Policy on our Site. We recommend you check our Site regularly to ensure you are aware of our current Privacy Policy.

For any questions or notices, please contact our Management at:

The Coast Dentists Pty Limited ABN 21 605 920 376

Email: reception@newleafdentists.com.au

Last update: 11 August 2020