​Introduction

We are committed to protecting the privacy of patient information and to handling your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012, the Australian Privacy Principles and relevant State and Territory privacy legislation (referred to as privacy legislation).

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use and disclose your personal information, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how you may make a complaint about a breach of privacy legislation.

This Privacy Policy is current from 1 February 2026 and is reviewed annually. From time to time, we may make changes to our policy, processes and systems in relation to how we handle your personal information. We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect any changes. This Privacy Policy is available at reception and on our website.

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Anonymity and Pseudonymity

Where it is lawful and practicable, you may choose to remain anonymous or to use a pseudonym when dealing with our practice. However, in most cases it will not be possible for us to provide medical services to you without identifying you.

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Collection

We collect information that is necessary and relevant to provide you with medical care and treatment and manage our medical practice. This information may include your name, address, date of birth, gender, health information, family history and contact details. This information may be stored on our computer medical records system.

Wherever practicable we will only collect information from you personally. However, we may also need to collect information from other sources such as treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals, other health care providers, and the My Health Record system.

We collect information in various ways, such as over the phone, or in writing, in person at Wolli Creek Family Practice or over the internet by e-mail. This information may be collected by medical and non-medical staff.

In emergency situations we may also need to collect information from your relatives or friends.

We may be required by law to retain medical records for certain periods of time depending on your age at the time we provide services.

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Use and Disclosure

We will treat your personal information as strictly private and confidential. We will only use or disclose it for purposes directly related to your care and treatment, or in ways that you would reasonably expect that we may use it for your ongoing care and treatment.

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This includes, but is not limited to:

• communicating with you regarding appointments, recalls and reminders (including SMS, phone and email)

• billing, Medicare claims and health fund processing

• referral to specialists, diagnostic services and allied health providers

• sending prescriptions electronically

• participation in quality assurance, accreditation, clinical audit and practice management activities

• responding to complaints and managing risk.

 

We use secure electronic systems to support your care and the management of our practice. These may include:

• Healthlink for secure electronic referrals (used only with your consent)

• HotDoc for online bookings, appointment reminders and patient communication

• Polar and Cubiko for practice analytics, reporting and quality improvement.

 

You may choose to opt out of certain communications or services where practicable by notifying the practice. However, this may impact our ability to provide you with timely and appropriate care.

There are circumstances where we may be permitted or required by law to disclose your personal information to third parties. For example, to Medicare, Police, insurers, solicitors, government regulatory bodies, tribunals, courts of law, hospitals, debt collection agents, the electronic transfer of prescriptions service or to the My Health Record system. We may also from time to time provide statistical data to third parties for research purposes (in de-identified form where practicable).

We may disclose information about you to outside contractors to carry out activities on our behalf such as IT service providers, solicitors or debt collection agents. We impose security and confidentiality requirements on how they handle your personal information. We take reasonable steps to ensure these third parties comply with the Australian Privacy Principles.

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Marketing and Communications

We may use your contact details to send you health-related information, appointment reminders, recalls and preventive care communications that are relevant to your care.

We do not use your personal information for direct marketing purposes unrelated to your healthcare without your consent. You may opt out of receiving communications at any time by contacting the practice. However, this may impact our ability to provide you with timely and appropriate care.

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Data Quality and Security

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, up to date and relevant. For this purpose, our staff may ask you to confirm that your contact details are correct when you attend a consultation. We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.

Personal information that we hold is protected by:

• securing our premises

• placing passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access and protect electronic information from unauthorised interference, access, modification and disclosure and

• implementing reasonable IT security measures, including system protections and staff confidentiality obligations.

 

Data Breaches

In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. We will take all reasonable steps to contain and investigate the breach.

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Corrections

If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up to date, we ask that you contact us in writing (see details below).

 

Access

You are entitled to request access to your medical records. We request that you put your request in writing, and we will respond to it within a reasonable time.

There may be a fee for the administrative costs of retrieving and providing you with copies of your medical records.

We may deny access to your medical records in certain circumstances permitted by law, for example, if disclosure may cause a serious threat to your health or safety. We will always tell you why access is denied and the options you have to respond to our decision.

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Complaints

If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information (including complaints about our use of the My Health Record system), we request that you contact us in writing. Upon receipt of a complaint, we will consider the details and attempt to resolve it in accordance with our complaints handling procedures.

If you are dissatisfied with our handling of a complaint or the outcome you may make an application to the Australian Information Commissioner or the Privacy Commissioner in your State or Territory.

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Overseas Transfer of Data

We will not transfer your personal information to an overseas recipient unless we have your consent, or it is otherwise permitted by law. Where we use third-party service providers (including cloud-based systems), we take reasonable steps to ensure that your information is handled in accordance with Australian privacy laws.

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Contact

Please direct any queries, complaints, requests for access to medical records to:

 

Practice Manager

Wolli Creek Family Practice

1 /2 Magdalene Tce Wolli Creek NSW 2205

 

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner

Telephone: 1300 363 992

Postal Address: GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001

Web: www.oaic.gov.au