Privacy & Information Collection Policy

Myndful Psychology, ABN: 61652579434 ("us", "we", or "our") recognises the importance of your privacy and respects your right to control how your personal information is collected and used. We are an APP Entity as defined in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the "Act"). This privacy policy is aligned with the Australian Privacy Principles as set out in the Act and describes the way that we may collect, hold and disclose personal information.
This Privacy Policy applies to our website, myndfulpsychology.com.au (the "website") which is operated by us, and to the products and services provided by us. In this policy "Personal Information" means any information that may identify you, or by which your identity might be reasonably determined. The information you provide us may include, amongst other things, your name, address, email address, and phone number.

Collection of Information

Myndful Psychology collects and holds personal health information about you.

The health information we collect enables us to properly assess, diagnose, treat your illnesses and be proactive in your health care needs. The information we may ask you may be very personal but not having this information may restrict our capacity to provide you with the standard of mental health care that you expect.

All members of the team involved in your care will have access to your personal information.

This means we may use and disclose the information you provide in the following ways:

• Disclosure to others involved in your mental health care, including doctors and specialists outside this practice who may become involved in treating you or in emergency situations. This may occur through referral to other health professionals, or for assessment, reports or handover provided to us.
• Administrative purposes in running our psychological practice to appropriate authorities or personnel, This includes our insurer or clinical indemnity providers, Medicare and referring accredited health practices.
• Billing purposes, including providing information to your health insurance fund, Medicare and other organisations responsible for the financial aspects of your care.
• Conducting clinical/psychological research. You will be informed when such activities are being conducted and your involvement will only take place if you provide express signed consent for each program.
• Assisting with training and education of other mental health professionals or psychologists. You will be informed when such activities are being conducted and your involvement will only take place if you provide express consent to your psychologist for each program.
• By law, psychologists are sometimes required to disclose information for reasons of public interest or safety, e.g. mandatory reporting legislation.

Consent

By engaging us or registering your details on our Website or by email or telephone, and/or using the Website or completing a client consent form or otherwise engaging our counselling services, you consent to us and our psychologists collecting, using and disclosing your personal information (including Health Information) for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.

Information Quality

Our goal is to ensure that your information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. To assist us with this, please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. Further, if you believe that the information, we have about you been not accurate, complete or up-to-date, contact us and we will use all reasonable efforts to correct the information.

Information Security, Use & Disclosure

The storage, use and, where necessary, the transfer of personal health information will be undertaken in a secure manner that protects client privacy.

The Australian Privacy Principles (APP) requires us to take all reasonable steps to protect the security of the personal information that we hold. This includes appropriate measures to protect electronic materials stored and those generated in hard copy. Even if you discontinue with the practice, there are requirements to keep client information for as long as required by law i.e. seven years or more after your last appointment depending on your age. All staff are required to respect and maintain the confidentiality of personal information and the privacy of all clients.

As a client of Myndful Psychology, we may disclose your personal information to:

• Other companies or individuals who assist us in providing services or who perform functions on our behalf
• Courts, tribunals and regulatory authorities if required by law; and
• Anyone else to whom you authorise us to disclose it, as aforementioned.

We may also use and share aggregate or non-personally identifying information about clients for market analysis, research, marketing or other purposes. We will not disclose, sell, share or trade your Personal Information to any third parties unless we first receive your consent.

Your Health Data Storage

Your health data is stored on an Australian compliant server. Authorised personnel are allowed secure, verified access to this data to aid in the provision of services to you. Despite taking appropriate measure to protect personal information used and collected by us, please be aware that no data security measures can guarantee 100% security all of the time. We cannot guarantee the security of any information transmitted to us via the internet and such transmission is at your risk. If we no longer require the use of your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it.

Notification of a Data Breach

If we have reason to suspect a data breach has occurred, we will undertake an assessment in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breach Scheme. If we determine there has been an eligible data breach, we will notify you as soon as reasonably practicable. If the breach relates to the My Health Records Act, we may disclose your personal information to the My Health Records System Operator under s 73A of that Act.

Cookies

Our Website myndfulpsychology.com.au may use "cookies"; technology to store data on your computer using the functionality of your browser. Many websites do this because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer has visited the site before.

You can modify your browser to prevent cookie use but if you do this our service (and our Website) may not work properly. The information stored in the cookie is used to identify you. This enables us to operate an efficient service and to track the patterns of behaviour of visitors to the Website.

In the course of serving advertisements to the Website (if any), third-party advertisers or ad servers may place or recognise a unique cookie on your browser. The use of cookies by such third party advertisers or ad servers is not subject to this Privacy Policy, but is subject to their own respective privacy policies.

Third-party websites

At times, our website may contain links to other, third-party websites. Any access to and use of such linked websites is not governed by this Privacy Policy, but, instead, is governed by the privacy policies of those third-party websites. We are not responsible for the information practices of such third-party websites.

Marketing

We may send you direct marketing emails and information about products and services that we consider may be of interest to you. These communications will only be sent via email and in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2004 (Cth) as you consented to upon registering for our Services. If, at any time, you would like to stop receiving these promotional emails, you may follow the opt-out instructions contained in any such email. Please note that it may take up to 10 business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt-out of receiving emails or promotions from us, we still may send you email about your account, your account or any services you have requested or received from us, or for other customer service purposes. We do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing. If you receive communications from us that you believe have been sent to you other than in accordance with this Privacy Policy, or in breach of any law, please contact us.

What Happens If You Choose Not to Provide Information?

You are not obliged to provide us with your personal information. However, if you choose not to provideMyndful Psychology with your personal details such as name, address, date of birth etc., we may not be able to provide you with the full range of our services.

Access

You can request, and we will provide you with access to, any personal information we hold about you (including any Health Information) (subject to any applicable legal exceptions).

Myndful Psychology could refuse access if:

• It would pose a serious threat to anyone's life or health.
• It would have an unreasonable impact on someone else's privacy.
• It might prejudice an investigation of possible unlawful activity.
• Denying access is required and authorized by or under law.

If access is refused on the grounds of serious threat to the client's life or health, you may request a second opinion - this process is described in the Complaint Handling Process section.

Discretionary refusal of access

The psychologist may choose not to provide access where:

• It would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other people.
• The request is frivolous or vexatious.
• The information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings between the practice and independent psychologist, and the information would not ordinarily be obtainable by the process of discovery in those proceedings.
• It would reveal the practice's intentions in relation to negotiations with the individual (other than the provision of a mental health service), in such a way as to expose or unreasonably cause disadvantage.
• It would be likely to prejudice a law enforcement function by or on behalf of a law enforcement agency.
• The individual has already unsuccessfully made a request for the information, and there are no reasonable grounds for making the request again.

Where there are direct inconsistencies between the Victorian Health Records Act and the Commonwealth Privacy Act, the Commonwealth law will prevail.

Request for Access

You do not have to give reasons for requesting access. The privacy legislation does not require immediate handing over of a record or session report. Access should however be provided within a reasonable time (no longer than 45 days to 30 days).

If you request access to a session result (whether before the psychologist has had the opportunity of consulting with you, or after) the psychologist should handle this situation in accordance with usual clinical practice. A hard copy of reports may be given to you after session with your psychologist.

If you request more detailed access, for example a copy of the entire file or a chance to view a large portion of the file, this would normally require written application for access as described below. If the client requests a copy of the file, then Myndful Psychology must comply an accurate summary can only be supplied.

The original records are the property of the independent health practitioner and accessible to Myndful Psychology. There are some circumstances in which access is restricted, and in these cases reasons for denying access will be explained. You can only be given access to your record while the treating practitioner is present, to explain and discuss the record. This will be charged at a normal fee of a session. No client will be allowed unsupervised access to their record.

The Access Process

The request should initially be referred to the client's regular psychologist, who will determine whether the information can be provided 'simply, freely and easily', or whether to ask the client to complete a written request for access to their clinical records.

Where the psychologist decides that a more formal level of access is required, the psychologist shall ask the client to write to Myndful Psychology specifically requesting what they require.

If the client needed to see the psychologist for other reasons this could perhaps be dealt with during a standard session. If the client did not need to see the psychologist a standard fee (described below) would apply.

Disclosure of Mental Health Information to Clinical Defense Organizations and Lawyers

Psychologists may be obliged to disclose client information relating to adverse outcomes to their Clinical Defense Organisation, insurer, clinical experts or lawyers, without obtaining client consent, so long as the disclosure is within the reasonable expectations of the client.

Complaint Handling Process

Your psychologist would usually be the first appropriate person to discuss any complaints. Most issues can be resolved simply through discussion between you and your psychologist.

Only on failure to reach common ground would the Privacy Commissioner be asked to investigate a complaint.

Contact details for Privacy Commissioner:

Contact Details for the Health Complaints Commissioner are:

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to request access to your personal information, correct or update you details or raise any privacy concerns you may have, please contact us at admin@myndfulpsychology.com.au.