
New Patient Registration Form
Privacy Policy
Effective Date: 21st November 2024
Welcome to Brisbane Breast and Surgical Care. We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your personal and medical information is handled with the utmost care and confidentiality. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal information in accordance with privacy laws and regulations.
1. Information We Collect
We may collect the following types of information about you:
- Personal Information: Name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, and emergency contact details.
- Medical Information: Health history, current medical conditions, treatment plans, and other health-related information necessary for your care.
- Billing Information: Insurance details, payment information, and other financial data related to services provided.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use your personal and medical information to:
- Provide and manage medical care and services.
- Process and manage billing and payment.
Communicate with you regarding your appointments, treatments, and follow-up care.
Communicate with practitioners who may also be involved with your care including your general practitioner or specialists we refer you to.
- Comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
- Improve our services and ensure the quality of care.
3. How We Protect Your Information
We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal and medical information. These measures include:
- Physical Security: Access to our office and records is restricted to authorized personnel only.
- Electronic Security: We use encryption, firewalls, and secure networks to protect your information stored electronically.
Administrative Security: Our staff is trained in privacy and confidentiality practices to ensure your information is handled appropriately.
4. Consent to Photography
An important part of our practice is to take clinical photographs for your medical record. These may be taken preoperatively, in the operating theatre and post operatively. In some instances this may also be a Medicare requirement.
Your doctor may need to share phots with other health professionals involved directly with your care (you will be informed of this if required).
Deidentified photos may be used for education and teaching purposes from time to time. Every effort to remove identifying aspects of a photograph will always be made.
5. Sharing Your Information
We may share your information with:
- Healthcare Providers: Other healthcare professionals involved in your care, such as specialists, laboratories, and hospitals, as necessary for your treatment.
- Insurance Companies: To process claims and verify coverage.
- Regulatory Authorities: To comply with legal requirements, including reporting and quality assurance.
Business Associates: Third-party service providers who assist us in administrative functions (e.g., billing services), under strict agreements to protect your privacy.
We do not sell or rent your personal information to third parties.
6. Fees
Consultation fees do apply and need to be finalised at the time of your appointment. Fees for radiology and pathology are not under the control of your surgeon. These are payable to radiology and pathology companies as per their policies. If you have questions about additional fees please discuss with your surgeon when request forms for these services are provide.
Surgical fees will be provided to you as part of informed financial consent prior to your surgery. The fees policy will be explained prior to your surgery which may require non-refundable deposits, full payment prior or delayed payment of rebates if billed through Medicare or your health fund.
7. Inclusion in clinical research and cancer database
Our practice is committed to providing multidisciplinary, evidence-based care to our patients. To enable us to do this, we may invite you to participate in international or national research as part of your treatment. This is entirely voluntary and your surgeon will discuss with you any studies they think you would be eligible to enrol in. Individual consent for the studies will be sought in compliance with local Ethics Committee requirements.
Our practice participates in national audit activity through the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), BreastSurgANZ and the Australian Breast Device Registry. De-identified data relating to your treatment may be provided to these institutions as part of our compliance with their regulations. Our practice also internally audits our activity to ensure we have excellent outcomes by keeping an internal registry. If your data is included in this registry, we may use it to measure certain clinical outcomes or report on activity. Please let us know if you do not wish for your data to be involved in this type of activity. We never provide your information to offshore third parties or provide it to external parities in identifiable (or re-identifiable) form.
Your surgeon may invite you to participate in surveys before and after your surgery. We are very interested in quality of life scoring and patient reported outcomes (PROMS). Traditionally, PROMS have been poorly reported in the field of breast surgery and the importance of short and long term outcomes is increasingly being recognised. Please let us know if you don’t wish to participate in these.
8. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Our practice uses Lyrebird Health transcription services during your consultations. This enables your treating team to dedicate more of the consultation time to understanding you and improves the efficiency and record-keeping quality of our practice.
How Lyrebird keeps your information secure:
Lyrebird Health recognises the value of privacy in healthcare and is committed to safeguarding patient data. Lyrebird Health keeps your information secure with strict compliance to Australian regulation. Lyrebird Health is designed to prevent unauthorised access, uphold patient anonymity, and securely dispose of sensitive data.
Transcription is performed exclusively within Australia.
The audio file is immediately destroyed post-transcription.
Transcription is redacted of sensitive, personal identifying information received.
Post-redaction, the transcript is encrypted. It is not stored in its original form.
Only the concerned clinician can access your health data.
By default, data is stored on the Australian servers for only 7 days before being deleted.
Learn more about how Lyrebird Health is ensuring your privacy at https://www.lyrebirdhealth.com/patient
9. Your Rights
You have the right to:
- Access: Request a copy of your medical records and personal information.
- Correct: Request corrections to any inaccuracies in your information.
- Confidentiality: Request restrictions on how your information is used or disclosed.
- Withdraw Consent: Revoke consent for certain uses of your information, except where legally required.
To exercise these rights, please contact us using the information provided below.
10. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on our website or provided to you in writing. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
11. Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or your personal information, please contact us at:
Brisbane Breast and Surgical Care
95 Robertson St, Fortitude Valley
(07) 3226 3800
Thank you for trusting us with your care and personal information.