Privacy Policy
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Fertility Tasmania will respect the privacy of every Fertility Tasmania patient. Fertility Tasmania will treat their patients’ personal and health information in accordance with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy (Private Sector) Amendment Act 2000 (Cth).
Fertility Tasmania is required to collect personal information from patients and others associated with the patients’ health care for a variety of purposes. This information will be used and disclosed for purposes directly related to a patient’s treatment and care.
Consent
Health Information is ‘sensitive information’ for the purposes of the Australian Privacy Principles and relevant State Guidelines. This means that your consent will be sought to collect health information. You will be required to sign a Privacy Consent indicating you have read and understood it. You will also have an opportunity to place conditions on the consent. Where practicable, Fertility Tasmania will comply with your conditions provided they are compliant with legislation.
There are legal obligations for Fertility Tasmania to provide information to statutory bodies. If you do not consent to the collection of the required data, please discuss this with the Privacy Officer.
Collection of Information
It is necessary for Fertility Tasmania to collect personal information from patients and sometimes others associated with their health care. Information is also collected for administrative purposes. Fertility Tasmania uses SMS /email as well as written communications with patients. Your Privacy Consent includes consent to electronic communication.
Use and Disclosure
A patient’s personal health information is only used or disclosed for purposes directly related to their care and treatment. The typical circumstances in which Fertility Tasmania will collect, use and disclose a patient’s health information are as follows:
- Dealings with the treating specialists
- Dealings with the patient’s General Practitioner/Referring Doctor
- Dealings with service providers such as Pathologists, Radiographers and allied health professionals e.g. counsellors/pharmacy
- Hospitals/Universities
- Dealings with a patient’s health fund/insurer
- Other infertility units if using their services or transporting eggs/sperm or embryos or notes
- Billing/debt recovery services
- Fertility Tasmania Leadership Team
- Statutory/Public Health Reporting Requirements.
- External auditing bodies
- Records management facilities
- Fertility Tasmania Legal Representative
- Fertility Tasmania Insurers
- Health Complaints Commissioners
At times, Fertility Tasmania may be approached by a person requesting information about you. Fertility Tasmania will not discuss your information without specific consent for example:
- Lawyer
- External Allied Health Professional eg. Naturopath
- Family Interpreter
- Family members/friends
- Example: A mother contacting Fertility Tasmania on behalf of her daughter regarding fee payments.
Data Quality and Accuracy
All patient information held by Fertility Tasmania relevant to the functions of providing assisted reproductive technology treatment and associated health care will be maintained in a form that is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you believe your records are inaccurate and you are requesting a file review/change, please contact the Privacy Officer.
Data Security
The storage, use and, where necessary, transfer of personal health information will be undertaken in a secure manner that protects patient privacy. It is necessary for Fertility Tasmania to keep a record of patients’ information for as long as is required by law or is prudent having regard to administrative requirements. The patients (partners are located in the same file) files are electronic with all hard copy files scanned into the electronic file. All files are password protected and only appropriately trained staff can access your file. All files have a back-up file. All staff sign a confidentiality /privacy agreement.
Openness
On request to the Privacy Officer, Fertility Tasmania will inform patients of:
- The type of information collected and maintained.
- The purposes of the information.
- How Fertility Tasmania collects, uses and discloses information.
Access and Correction
A patient can request a copy of their file upon request. A standard copy of the file will be provided to the patient generally within 10 working days depending on staff availability. There will be a fee associated with this request and this fee along with outstanding fees will need to be paid before a copy of the file is processed.
Patients may gain access to their personal information upon request and in writing to the Medical Director for the purposes of amending any personal information held that is incorrect. There may be circumstances when access is restricted, and in these cases, reasons for denying access will be explained. A charge may apply where Fertility Tasmania incurs costs in providing access to and/or copy of patient information.
If requested, a record of finances paid will be given to patients. It is the patient’s responsibility to notify Fertility Tasmania of any change in their relationship status and if any amendments to conditions of disclosure of information.
If requested, a patient’s health information can be made available to other health service providers. This can only occur if the patient has consented to the release of this information.
If a couple is separated or divorced, Fertility Tasmania cannot provide information regarding the ex-partner.
If you have any questions please contact the Privacy Officer.
Identifiers
These are the Fertility Tasmania patient numbers that are used to identify patients with or without the use of a name. Fertility Tasmania will limit the use of identifiers by Commonwealth Government Agencies to those uses necessary to fulfil Fertility Tasmania’s obligations to those Agencies, eg Medicare number.
Anonymity
A patient has a right to be dealt with anonymously, provided this is lawful and practicable. However, in the context of assisted reproductive technology treatment, this is not practicable or possible for Medicare, health insurance management or treatment purposes, and therefore, Fertility Tasmania cannot facilitate the anonymous use of patient information.
Transborder Data Flows
The privacy of individuals is protected Australia-wide by privacy laws. Fertility Tasmania will take reasonable steps to protect patients’ privacy if information is to be sent interstate or outside Australia. To protect your privacy, Fertility Tasmania will provide a copy of your file to you personally, not a direct copy to a third party.
Patient Concerns
If a patient has any concerns relating to privacy issues, please contact the Privacy Officer on 03 6169 1111.
If there is no resolution to the issue, the patient may seek advice from:
HealthComplaints Commissioner (TAS)
FREECALL 1800 001 170
Website Privacy Policy
This Website Privacy Policy sets out the way in which we handle information collected through our website. When you use our website you may provide us with personal information.
Fertility Tasmania has a separate privacy policy, which sets out the way in which we will handle your personal information in compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and Australian Privacy Principles contained in that Act, and other relevant privacy laws.
Use of personal information collected through our website
We will only collect your personal information through our website (such as your email address or other contact details) if you submit an online enquiry or seminar registration to us directly. We will only use this information for the purposes for which you have provided it and in accordance with our Privacy Policy and relevant privacy laws.
Cookies
Cookies are small files that are stored on your computer, tablet or mobile phone by a website which record your visit and collect statistical information.
Fertility Tasmania uses cookies via our website for internal use only. We use the information sourced from these cookies to help improve our website experience by creating more effective content and developing better user experiences.
PLEASE NOTE: This data is anonymous and cannot be tracked back to any one user.
Most web browsers accept cookies automatically but you may configure your browser to reject cookies. If you set your browser to reject cookies you may not be able to make full use of our website. If you wish to disable cookies, here are the instructions for the most popular web browsers:
Remarketing with Google Analytics
Fertility Tamsmania uses analytics data and the double click cookie to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to our website. You have the ability to opt out of the double click cookie by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page or by opting out of Google Analytics by visiting the Google Analytics opt-out page.
If you would like to know more about remarketing you can view Google’s Remarketing Privacy Guidelines, Policies and Restrictions pages.
Contact us
If you have any questions relating to our Website Privacy Policy, please contact us on 6169 1111 .