PRIVACY POLICY
Nature’s Therapy Room (ABN 33 161 721 204) is committed to ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information.
In this document, Nature’s Therapy Room, Us, Our, and We refer to Nature’s Therapy Room. References to client, you and your are references to any individual about whom we collect personal information.
This Privacy Policy (Policy) intends to clearly describe how Nature’s Therapy Room handles your personal information, including its collection, use, disclosure and security, and any personal information that we collect through our website(s).
Our Privacy Policy should be read together with our Website Disclaimer and Terms and Conditions. By accessing our website or using our services, you agree to be bound by the terms of our Privacy Policy.
Nature’s Therapy Room complies with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act), the associated Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and state and territory legislation that governs how private sector health services providers should handle your personal information, including, but not limited to, health information.
From time to time, Nature’s Therapy Room may amend this Policy, in whole or part, at our sole discretion.
Any changes to this Policy will be effective immediately upon posting the revised Policy on our website(s). We will deem that you have agreed to such changes if you continue to access our services following any changes. If you do not accept the terms of this Policy, as amended from time to time, in whole or part, you must not access our services, including our website(s).
CONSENT
Nature’s Therapy Room, is committed to ensuring that any personal information we collect is obtained lawfully, transparently and with your consent, whenever it is practical for us to do so.
By providing personal information to us, you consent to us collecting, using and disclosing your personal information in the Policy.
In some circumstances, where it is not reasonable or practical for us to collect this information directly from you, responsible persons (for example, a spouse or partner, close family member, or emergency contact) may consent on your behalf.
COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Who does Nature’s Therapy Room collect personal information about?
We may collect personal information from clients, healthcare professionals, employees, contracted service providers, students, trainees, suppliers, and other individuals with whom we engage in the course of our usual business operations.
There is an ethical obligation for psychologists to make and keep accurate notes about all consultations. You cannot request information to be excluded from the practitioner’s file. If you do not wish for your personal information to be collected in a way anticipated by this Privacy Policy, or if you provide incomplete or inaccurate information, Nature’s Therapy Room may not be able to provide services to you, or your services may be affected.
How do we collect personal information?
We will usually collect your personal information directly from you or by email, telephone, live chat, written correspondence, social media channels, face-to-face consultation, or via our website(s). Where it is not reasonable or practical for us to collect this information directly from you, we may need to collect information about you from a third party. We may also collect information from a third party where your health may be at risk, and we may need your personal information to provide you with emergency medical treatment.
The third parties from whom we may collect your personal information include:
other health service providers, including healthcare professionals, hospitals, or clinics if they have referred you to us or are involved in your care.
your nominated responsible persons (such as a relative or carer)
the MyHealth Record program operated by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Health, if you have chosen to participate
WHAT TYPES OF INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND HOLD?
The type of personal information we collect about you depends on who you are, our relationship with you and the nature of interaction with you.
The personal information we collect about you will include only the information that is necessary or required:
to provide you with services (including, in the case of NDIS and Medicare clients, coordinating and communicating with your healthcare providers)
for us to engage with you in the usual course of our business
for administrative and internal business purposes related to the services we provide you.
The personal information we collect may include:
your name, age, gender, date of birth, contact details
information relating to your lifestyle and medical history relevant to providing psychological services (such as medications, diagnostic tests and treatments, family medical history, occupational history, genetic or biometric information and copies of correspondence to and from your healthcare providers)
results from psychological assessments and clinical intake notes
relevant government and insurance identifiers (such as your NDIS number, Medicare number or private health insurance details), when necessary for billing or other administrative purposes
personal information collected in the form of clinical images and samples
records of our past engagement with you
any information relating to your employment (If you are a Nature’s Therapy Room team member), including employment histories, applications, pre-employment checks, qualifications, training records and information required by laws, regulations or standards
payment details
other information, occasionally including religion and ethnicity, that may be relevant in our dealings with you.
Anonymity and pseudonymity
You may deal with us anonymously or by using 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
on the understanding that doing so may mean that we may not be able to provide certain services to you, either at our usual standard, or at all.
HOW DOES NATURE’S THERAPY ROOM USE YOUR INFORMATION?
We will not use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than the primary purpose for which it was collected (or a related secondary purpose). The exceptions to this are if you have consented to another purpose, or if we are permitted/required to do so by law, which may include:
to coordinate and/or communicate with healthcare providers involved in your care
in the course of obtaining required supervision
to procure additional healthcare services on your behalf (such as referrals to other providers or obtaining second opinions)
to conduct activities related to quality assurance/improvement processes, accreditation, audits, risk and claims management, patient satisfaction surveys and staff education and training
to liaise with your health fund, insurer, Medicare, Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Department of Health or another payer or contractor of services
to fulfil regulatory and public health requirements, including liaising with regulatory or health authorities, as required by law
to send your standard reminders (for example, for appointment for follow up care, account management), by text message, mail or email, to the number or address that you provided us
to handle a complaint or respond to anticipated or existing legal actions
to obtain feedback about our services or provide advice or information to you about products, services, treatment options and clinical trials that are relevant to you
for billing and payments
to engage you (as a contractor) to provide products or services to us
to consider your application for employment with us
In addition, we may de-identify and/or aggregate the personal information that we collect to carry out clinical research, quality assurance or analytics relating to customer service, health outcomes and other business activities.
Nature’s Therapy Room may use electronic processes when using your personal information as specified above. We may link, combine or share personal information about you in various databases created by any of Nature’s Therapy Room businesses.
We will not seek your consent to use your personal information for the above purposes.
Use of personal information for direct marketing
We may use your personal information for marketing that is directly related to our services, in compliance with applicable laws, such as the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and Spam Act 2003 (Cth). We may engage third parties, under contract, to provide marketing services on our behalf.
You may advise us that you do not wish to receive direct marketing from us at any time by contacting us or by using the opt-out facilities provided in our client registration processes, informed consent procedures and the marketing communications you receive.
DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES
When providing services to you or otherwise engaging with you, we may disclose your personal information to trusted third parties, including:
healthcare service providers or other relevant parties involved in your care or requesting services on your behalf (including to obtain second opinions or make referrals, on your behalf, for specialist medical services)
registries, statutory bodies and other third parties where requested to do so by you or as required by law (such as Medicare, NDIS)
approved and trusted contractors engaged in providing professional services (such as debt collection, information and communication technology providers, specialist clinical services).
Where we outsource any of our services or hire contractors to perform professional services, we will require them, under contract, to comply with the Privacy Act, or other relevant privacy legislation and, where applicable, our Privacy Policy.
We may use electronic processes to disclose your personal information as specified above, where available or relevant. Where we use document automation technologies to disclose your personal information (such as to generate appointment bookings, referrals, and intakes), we will only disclose your information to the extent reasonably necessary and only for the purposes specified above.
We will not seek your additional consent to disclose your personal information for the purposes described above.
MY HEALTH RECORD
If you choose to participate in the My Health Record program operated by the Commonwealth Department of Health, we may access the personal information it contains. We may also disclose your personal information by uploading your health information electronically to the My Health Record system if requested to do so.
If you do not want us to access personal information stored in your My Health Record or upload health information to it, you may opt out or choose to modify access controls within the My Health Record system.
WEBSITE
When you use our website(s), we do not identify you as an individual user and do not collect personal information about you, unless you specifically provide this to us.
Our website(s) may use Google Analytics and/or cookies that allow us to gather anonymised statistics relating to the management of our website(s). These analytics may include, but are not limited to, your internet service provider (ISP), domain name, browser type, and pages you visit. By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner described in Google’s Privacy Policy. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse cookies, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.
Our website(s) and our email communications may contain links to third-party websites and social media sites. We do not control third-party websites or any of their content and if you visit these websites, they will be governed by their own terms of use (including privacy policies). You should satisfy yourself of the personal information handling policies of third-party website operations.
HOLDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Nature’s Therapy Room holds and collects your personal information in both electronic form and hard copy. Electronic information is held securely on servers and computer systems. Some paper-based documents may be converted to electronic form and the original paper copy destroyed in a secure manner when it is no longer required. Personal information retained in paper-based documents is stored in our secure locked cabinets. We are legally required to hold client’s personal information for a minimum of 7 (seven) years from the date of last entry in your record or if you are a minor until you attain or would have attained 25 years of age.
PROTECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We take the protection of your personal information seriously and take all reasonable steps to ensure the information that we collect, use and disclose is accurate, secure and protected from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Client’s information is not disclosed to overseas recipients, unless the client consents or such disclosure is otherwise required by law.
Client’s personal information will never be used, sold, rented or disclosed for any purpose other than to provide our services in accordance with consent gained.
Accuracy
We will take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we collect, use or disclose is accurate, complete and current. To assist us, please ensure that the information you provide to us is accurate, up-to-date and complete, and let us know when your personal information changes.
Security
We will take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, medication or disclosure. We use technologies and processes including, but not limited to, access controls, network firewalls, encryption and physical security measures to protect your privacy. We regularly review our information security processes to ensure they continue to offer an appropriate level of protection for your information.
No data transmission over the internet or information stored on servers accessible through the internet can be guaranteed to be fully secure. We are unable to ensure the security of personal information that is left with you or provided to you, such as, a paper-based report or an email sent to you.
Retention
When we no longer need your personal information for the purposes in the Policy, and we are not required to retain it under relevant accreditation standards or law, we will destroy or permanently de-identify it.
Notification
If we become aware that unauthorised access or disclosure of your information has occurred and there is a likely risk or serious harm associated with that unauthorised access or disclosure, we will notify you promptly and provide you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in accordance with the Privacy Act.
ACCESS TO, AND CORRECTION OF, YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Access
You have the right to request access to the personal information about you which we hold.
We will provide you with access to your information, unless there is a reason under the Privacy Act or other relevant law to refuse or limit such access, such as if we reasonably believe that giving access would pose a serious threat to the life, health or safety of an individual, or to public health or public safety; or giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals. In this instance, we will notify you in writing setting out the reasons.
You may request access to the personal information we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer (see below).
To protect your privacy, we will need you to verify your identity before providing access to your information. We may recover reasonable costs associated with supplying this information to you.
Clients wanting access to their personal information must arrange an appointment with the psychologist responsible for your file so that complex clinical information can be explained to you within the context of your individual circumstance.
CORRECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
You have the right to request an amendment to the information we hold, should you believe it to be inaccurate.
If we are satisfied that any part of the information we hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, misleading or irrelevant, having regard for the purpose for which it is held, we will take reasonable steps to amend that information.
If we do not agree to change your personal information in accordance with your request, we will permit you to make a statement of the requested changes and we will enclose this with your personal information.
Should you wish to request changes to your personal information held by us, you can ask for our Privacy Officer (see below), who can give you more detailed information about our correction procedure.
CONTACTING NATURE’S THERAPY ROOM ABOUT PRIVACY ISSUES AND COMPLAINTS
If you have comments or concerns relating to this Policy, or wish to make a complaint about our handling of your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer. We may need to verify your identity and ask for further details to investigate and respond to your concern or complaint. We will aim to respond to you within a reasonable time and generally within 30 days.
Nature’s Therapy Room Privacy Officer contact details
Address:
The Privacy Officer,
Nature’s Therapy Room,
130 Narrow Leaf Road,
Advancetown, Qld, 4211
Email: naturestherapyroom@gmail.com
Telephone: +61 450305499
If we cannot satisfactorily resolve your concern or complaint, you may wish to contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). The OAIC has the power to investigate the matter and make a determination.
If your concern of complaint relates to health information, you may also contact the relevant state of territory privacy commissioner.
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
Address:
GPO Box 5218,
Sydney, NSW, 2001
Email: enquiries@oaic.gov.au
Telephone: 1300 363 992
Web: www.oaic.gov.au
Last Updated: July 2022