Cancellation and Privacy Policy

Cancellation Policy

Missed Appointment Policy

Our goal is to provide quality health care to all our patients in a timely manner. No-shows, late arrivals, and cancellations inconvenience not only our therapists, but our other patients as well. Please be aware of our policy regarding missed appointments.

Appointment Cancellation

We understand that sometimes plans change and you are no longer able to make your appointment. When you book your appointment, you are holding a space on our calendar that is no longer available to our other patients. In order to be respectful of your fellow patients, please call Accelerate [Sonya] as soon as you know you will not be able to make your appointment. This way, we are able to provide you with another option to book at the next available time that suits you and free’s up an appointment for another patient.

If a cancellation is necessary, we require that you call at least 24 hours in advance from the time of your appointment. Appointments are in high demand, and your advanced notice will allow another patient access to that appointment time.

How to Cancel Your Appointment

If you need to cancel your appointment, please call us on 0410 747 736 between the hours of 8am to 6pm. If necessary, you may leave a detailed voicemail message as the therapist may be with a patient at the time of the call. We will return your call as soon as possible.

Late Cancellations/No-Shows

A cancellation is considered late when the appointment is cancelled less than 24 hours before the appointed time. A no-show is when a patient misses an appointment without cancelling. In either case, we will charge the patient an admin missed appointment fee. Exceptions will be made in certain circumstances based on the Therapists judgement.

Class/ Group Cancellation Policy

Our classes have limited spots, and many of our class sell out. For this reason, we request that you cancel at least 24 hours before your scheduled class. This will allow us to offer your spot to another patient before the commencement of the class. You may call us at 0410 747 736 between the hours of 8am to 6pm to cancel.

For new patients’ first appointments, a no show or late cancellation will result in a full charge of the new patient fee.

 

Privacy Policy

ACCELERATE EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY PRIVACY POLICY

Current as of: 01/01/2021

POLICY INTRODUCTION

Accelerate Exercise Physiology is committed to adhering to the privacy policy outlined by the Privacy Act 1988. We are committed to providing quality services and ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information. This privacy policy is to provide information to you, our patient, on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties.

This policy statement outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect to how we manage your personal information:

  • What is personal information and how we collect it

  • What we collect and use your personal information

  • Why we collect your personal information

  • When, Why and Whom do we share your personal information

  • Disclosure of personal information

  • How we store and protect your personal information

  • Access to your personal information

  • Policy Review statement

  • Privacy policy complaints and enquiries

COLLECTION AND PERSONAL INFORMATION DEFINITION

Collection means gathering, acquiring or obtaining personal information for inclusion in a private record or privately available publication. Accelerate Exercise Physiology obtain various forms of relevant health information that will allow us to provide you with the services that you need.

Personal Information is information that we collect about you that identifies you as an individual.

Dealing with us anonymously:

You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under 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.

HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION

We collect health information in a number of different ways, these include:

  • When you make your first appointment, our therapists will collect your personal and demographic information via your registration. This may be conducted by over the phone, during Telehealth appointments, face to face at an appointment, written form and through an online platform.

  • We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS, make an online appointment or communicate with us using social media.

  • In some circumstances personal information may also be collected from other sources. Often this is because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from:

  • Your guardian or responsible person

  • Other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services

  • Your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).

  • During the course of providing medical services, we may collect further personal information.

Why and when your consent is necessary:

When you register as a patient of ours, you provide consent for our therapists to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT AND HOLD

The type of information we will collect about you includes your:

  • Names, date of birth, addresses, contact details

  • Medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, social history, family history and risk factors

  • Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes

  • Healthcare identifiers

  • Health fund details

Other examples of information that we collect include:

  • Record of what a patient, or a patients parent and/or guardian says, or recording our own objective opinion on what a patient has said.

  • Your health history, lifestyle background and interests/hobbies.

  • Your Occupation, Employer’s details

  • Medical practitioners information that you see.

  • Payment details and financial information e.g. pensioners or seniors benefits etc.

WHY WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

Our therapists will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes (eg staff training).

WHEN, WHY AND WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We sometimes share your personal information:

  • With third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or Insurance providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy

  • With other healthcare providers

  • When it is required or authorised by law (e.g. court subpoenas)

  • When it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent

  • For the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process

Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.

 We will not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.

Our Therapists will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent. If you do consent, you may opt out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing.

Our Therapists may use your personal information to improve the quality of the services we offer to our patients through research and analysis of our patient data.

HOW WE STORE AND PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Your personal information may be stored at our Practice in various forms.

Our practice stores all personal information securely.

Security measures we use include:

  • 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.

  • Encryption of data.

  • Virus scanning tools.

  • Management of access privileges, to ensure that only those who really need it can see your

  • personal information.

  • Ongoing training and security reviews.

We will remain vigilant in our efforts to protect your personal information.

HOW CAN YOU ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have the right to request access to, and correction of, your personal information. Accelerate Exercise Physiology acknowledges patients may request access to their medical records. We require you to put this request in writing and email this to our direct email at skelly@accelerateep.com.au and our therapists will respond within a reasonable time. Please allow for up to 30 days for us to process this request and provide the information requested.

Our practice will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate or up to date. From time to time, we will ask you to verify that your personal information held by our practice is correct and current. You may also request that we correct or update your information, and you should make such requests in writing to skelly@accelerateep.com.au.

POLICY UPDATES

Accelerate Exercise Physiology is committed to ensuring that your information is up to date. Once we have obtained your information we will take necessary measures to make sure your Personal Information is accurate and complete. If you believe that the information that we have about you is not accurate, up-to-date or complete, please advise us as soon as you can to ensure we can continue to provide you with quality services. We will continue to inform you when our privacy policy has been updated through

POLICY REVIEW STATEMENT

We'll amend this policy if our practices change. Details of recent amendments and the date they were made will be detailed below.

OUTSTANDING PAYMENTS

In some instances, we may require assistance from third parties such as debt collectors or other companies for overdue debts. If this action is required, we will allow them secure access to the personal information that they may require to handle the debt.

HOW CAN YOU LODGE A PRIVACY-RELATED COMPLAINT, AND HOW WILL THE COMPLAINT BE HANDLED AT OUR PRACTICE?

We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure.

You may also contact the OAIC. Generally, the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond before they will investigate. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.

GENERAL ENQUIRIES AND COMPLAINTS IN RELATION TO YOUR INFORMATION

If you have any queries or complaints about our Privacy Policy, please contact:

  • Accelerate Exercise Physiology

  • Compliance Officer

  • Phone: 0410 747 736

  • Email: skelly@accelerateep.com.au

  • Address: 11 Restormel Street, Woolooware 2230 NSW Sydney

 LEGISLATION

This policy refences the following legislation:

·       Privacy Act 1988: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2014C00076

·       Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012

·       National Disability Insurance Scheme (Protection and disclosure of information – Commissioner) Rules 2018