Privacy policy

SGS Enterprises Pty Ltd trading as SA Group of Specialists is committed to ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information.

Our practice must comply with the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) and this policy is consistent with the Australian Privacy Principles of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to clearly communicate to you how we handle your health information and meta data. It gives you a more complete understanding of the type of personal information that the practice may hold about you and the way we may deal with it.

Because your information is so important to us, we will always be honest and transparent about how we handle it. Every day we use information collected to improve our practice and provide better outcomes. In order to provide you with the health care service that you have requested, we will need to collect and use your personal information. If you provide incomplete or inaccurate information to us or withhold personal health information from us, we may not be able to provide you with the services you are seeking.

Collection and use of your personal information

We collect personal information to supply you with the answers, products, and services you have asked for or may require.

Other reasons we collect personal information are to:

• Understand you, and how we can meet your needs now and in the future.
• Develop or evaluate your current and future health.
• Manage our practice.
• Comply with legal obligations.
• Claim payment from Medicare and insurers.
• Comply with hospital and third-party collaborators information needs.
• Comply with our reporting and other obligations to third party collaborators or facilities such as assisting medical professionals, theatre staff and post-operative support teams.
• Enable sending correspondence and reports to and from our clinical desktop system to other healthcare providers.
• Develop research statistics.

The type of information we collect to assist the healthcare team in diagnosing and treating your condition may include:

• Personal information like your name, address, date of birth, gender.
• Your health history, ethnic background, or current lifestyle.
• Occupation, employer’s details, interests, payment details, financial information.
• Information about how and where you were referred to us.
• Health information including medical results, clinical and medical records.
• Family medical history and their details.
• Other medical service providers’ commentary, diagnosis and test results.

Where we collect information

We collect most personal information directly from you:

• When you pay your bill or make an appointment.
• During a consultation.
• Completing a form (online or in the rooms).
• We may also collect data while visiting our website that may use cookies and other digital identifiers. These include site performance identifiers which give us information about how our websites are used. This helps us provide you with a more user-friendly experience.
• Analytics cookies are used to gather statistics about our site and apps. For example, they help us monitor how many users are on the site and what sections are most popular.

What we collect from others

Other people might give us personal information about you. This could include information obtained from:

• Your employer.
• Other companies that are able to disclose it to us, if it is not practical to collect it from you including personal information from trusted sources and professional service providers.

We will take reasonable steps to make sure you know we have your personal information, how we got it and how we will handle it.

Sharing of your personal information

We will only disclose personal information to others if you’ve given us permission, or if the disclosure relates to the main reason we collected the information and you would reasonably expect us to do so.

We may share your personal information within a wider group of professional service providers that may include:

• employees,
• contractors,
• colleagues,
• co-workers,
• case managers,
• allied health professionals, and
• other parties reasonably expected to be included in the treatment of your case.

You may be referred for diagnostic tests such as pathology or radiology and our staff may consult with medical experts when determining your diagnosis or treatment. Our staff may also refer you to other health service providers for further treatment during and following your admission (for example, to a physiotherapist or outpatient or community health services). In dealing with us our service may involve several stages and aspects of the complete service may involve other parties, such as anaesthetists or post-operative care providers, we will give them the personal information they need to provide and manage their relationship with you. In these circumstances, we have arrangements in place with our partners that limit their use or disclosure of your personal information to these purposes.

We work with third parties to provide some types of support. They may have access to systems that include your personal information. These companies are subject to strict controls that protect your information from unauthorised use or disclosure and limit their access to your personal information to the extent necessary to do their job.

Advertising

We may use your personal information to send you advertising that is customised or more relevant to your interests, characteristics or general location. We may advertise by mail, phone, email, text, and online via the internet and in apps. We also may work with other companies to advertise their products online. We do not give them access to your personal information when we do this. Instead, we work with them to understand the type of audience they want to advertise to and deliver the ad for them.

Opting out

We will make sure that any marketing emails, texts and letters we send you clearly tell you how to opt out, or you can tell our phone staff. You can opt out of receiving online relevant advertising material at any time by clicking on the opt out button displayed on an online ad. When you opt out, you can choose to opt out of particular direct marketing, or all direct marketing. There are some types of marketing we cannot control on an individual basis, like general letterbox drops or online ads that are not targeted specifically to you.

How we protect your information

We are committed to protecting your personal information and we use security measures including:

• Firewalls and access logging tools that protect against unauthorised access to your data and our network.
• Secure work environments and workflow systems that prevent unauthorised access and copying of your personal information.
• Secure server and closed network environments.
• Data encryption.
• Virus scanning tools.
• Management of access privileges to ensure that only those who really need it can see your personal information.

Accessing Your Personal Information

We give access to personal information where we are permitted or obliged to do so by Australian law. For example, in some circumstances we will use or disclose personal information to react to unlawful activity, serious misconduct, or to reduce or prevent a serious threat to life, health or safety. We may disclose personal information, including information about phone calls and service use, when we receive an access request or warrant that is authorised under Australian law.

If you ask us, we will usually give you access to the personal information we hold about you. We will always confirm your identity before giving access to your personal information. There are circumstances under Australian privacy laws where we may not give you access to the personal information we hold about you. For example, we cannot give you access if it would unreasonably affect someone else’s privacy or if giving you access poses a serious threat to someone’s life, health or safety. There is generally no cost for accessing the personal information we hold about you, unless the request is complex or resource intensive. If there is a charge, it will be reasonable and we will let you know what it is going to be so that you can agree to it before we go ahead.

Quality of personal information

We aim to keep the personal information we hold about you accurate, up-to-date and complete. If you think our records need to be corrected, please call us.

We encourage you to update your details with us so we can deliver better service to you, and so the others we work with (like emergency services) have access to the information they need to do their job.

Contacting us

We recognise that your personal information is important to you, so please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about this policy or our practices.

You can contact us by mail, email or telephone at one of our sites.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

SA Group of Specialists reserves the right to make amendments to this Privacy Policy at any time. If you have objections to the Privacy Policy, you should not access or use the site.

Legal disclaimer

All information on this website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only.

SA Group of Specialists does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of this information. Any action you take upon the information you find on this website is strictly at your own risk.

SA Group of Specialists will not be liable for any losses and/or damages in connection with the use of our website. From our website, you can visit other websites by following hyperlinks to such external sites. While we strive to provide only quality links to useful and ethical websites, we have no control over the content and nature of these sites.

These links to other websites do not imply a recommendation for all the content found on these sites. Site owners and content may change without notice and may occur before we can remove a link that may have gone ‘bad’.

Please be also aware that when you leave our website, other sites may have different privacy policies and terms which are beyond our control. Please be sure to check the Privacy Policies of these sites as well as their “Terms of Service” before engaging in any business or uploading any information.

If you require any more information please feel free to contact us by email. By using our website, you hereby consent to our disclaimer and agree to its terms.