Terms & Conditions | Imaging Service

Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

South West Radiology is the leading and trusted provider of diagnostic medical imaging services in South West Sydney. We are committed to best practice in relation to the management of information that is collected about our patients.

We have developed this policy to protect patient privacy by handling your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with:

The Privacy Act 1988;
The 13 Australian Privacy Principles (APP) from Schedule 1 of the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 which amended the Privacy Act 1988 and replaced the National Privacy Principles and Information Privacy Principles;
Legal and ethical confidentiality obligations;
Other relevant State and/or Territory Laws.

We are dedicated to protecting our patients’ privacy and implementing this policy by providing training to our staff and continually evaluating this policy on an annual basis.

The purpose of this policy is to inform you of:

The kinds of information that we collect and hold, which, as a medical practice, is likely to be ‘health information’ for the purposes of the Privacy Act;
How we collect and hold personal information;
The purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information;
How you may access your personal information and seek the correction of that information;
How you may complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with such a complaint;
Whether we are likely to disclose personal information to overseas recipients;

2. What kinds of personal information do we collect?

The type of information we may collect and hold includes:

Your name, address, date of birth, email and contact details.
Medicare and DVA number (for identification and claiming purposes only).
Healthcare identifiers (workers compensation & 3rd party insurance).
Medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, family history, risk factors.
Other specialist reports and test results.
Credit card and other billing details.
Online/SMS/Chat enquiry forms.
Any other information about your race, sexuality or religion, when collected by a health service provider.

3. How do we collect and hold personal information?

We will generally collect patients’ personal information:

During registration/check-in at our clinics, via face-to-face interactions and/or paperwork exchanged between you and our administrative staff;
During the course of providing medical imaging services, our radiologists and accredited technical staff will collect further personal information; either verbally or in writing;
From the patients’ guardian or responsible person (where practicable and necessary), or from any other involved healthcare specialists, your health fund, Medicare or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary);
We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS, call (telephone), make an online appointment/chat or communicate with us using social media. Information collected through our website may also include website analytics, cookies etc.

4. Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?

Information we collect about our referring physicians, their staff and the practices include:

Name, address, telephone numbers, fax / email address and other contact details.
Details of IT systems.
Medicare provider numbers and billing information.
Area of specialisation.
Employment history.
Service delivery preferences, referral patterns and fees paid by referred patients.
Information gathered by marketing liaisons during site visits.
Expressed wishes about the future provision of health services.
Details of feedback, complaints, incidents and suggestions.

Information we collect about our staff may include:

Name, address, email address and other contact details.
Letters of application / expression of interest and associated correspondence.
Curriculum Vitae / resume.
Referee comments.
Performance records.
Superannuation membership details.
Bank details, tax file number and other employment records
Language skills for assistance with patient communication

Information we may collect and store about employment applicants may include:

This information is stored for unsuccessful applicants as a future reference to other available positions that may arise.

5. How can you access and correct your personal information?

You have a right to seek access to, and correction of the personal information which we hold about you.

For details on how to access and correct your health record, please contact our practice as noted below under ‘Contact Details’:

We will normally respond to your request within 14 days.

6. How do we hold your personal information?

Our staff are trained and required to respect and protect your privacy. We take reasonable steps to protect information held from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. This includes:

Holding your information on our encrypted database (RIS & PACS).
Backing up/replicating your data on another separate database (PACS).
Holding your information in secure cloud storage with business grade encrypted links.
2 Factor Authentication.
Staff are provided training and education around understanding their legal and contractual obligations as healthcare professionals.
Our practice has document retention and destruction policies.
Annual reviews of this policy.
Management involvement/escalation of these complaints.

7. Privacy related questions and complaints

If you have any questions about privacy-related issues or wish to complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles or the handling of your personal information by us, you may lodge your complaint in writing to (see below for details). We will normally respond to your request within 14 days. If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may refer the matter to the OAIC:

8. Anonymity and pseudonyms

The Privacy Act provides that individuals must have the option of not identifying themselves, or of using a pseudonym, when dealing with our practice, except in certain circumstances.

At South West Radiology, it is impracticable for us to deal with patients that elect not to identify themselves or utilise pseudonyms as this may:

Impact diagnosis.
Cause a risk to patient safety and would conflict with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care guidelines for Quality and Safety.
Cause a mismatch in patient records.
Create communication breakdown between patients and treating physicians.
Result in an examination not being claimed under Medicare or relevant insurance funds.

Patients can elect to remain anonymous when they are either about a service provided by South West Radiology. Patient details will be requested at the time of booking an appointment and at the time of examination.

9. Overseas disclosure.

We may disclose your personal information to the following overseas recipients:

Any practice or individual who assists us in providing services (such as where you have come from overseas and had your health record transferred from overseas or have treatment continuing from an overseas provider) .
Overseas transcription services.
Overseas based cloud storage.
International vendors who provide business critical software
Anyone else to whom you authorise us to disclose it.

11. Online Access to images and reports.

South West Radiology delivers your images and report to your referring physician via a secure electronic system. This system is encrypted and requires certificates at the referrers end to allow them to de-encrypt the report and download it into their patient management system.

We also provide you with online access to your own images and reports, via a secure portal that requires login credentials by users. Your referring physician may request access to your images via this method.

A third party specialist may also request access to these images for purposes relating to your medical treatment so we will acknowledge your consent through the Collection and Privacy Statement signed at the time of your examination.

12. Updates to this Policy

This Policy will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and technology, changes to our operations and other necessary developments. Updates will be publicised on the practice’s website.

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