Privacy Policy

Therapy Partners Pty Ltd (Therapy Partners) collects information about you and others to enable it to perform its functions and activities.

We have adopted the National Privacy Principles (NPPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The NPPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your Personal Information. A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au.

What kinds of personal information do we collect and hold?

“Personal information” means information or an opinion about an individual whose identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained. To provide occupational therapy services to our clients, we need to know personal information about them and others, including:

names, ages, genders, and other identifying information;
Medicare and health fund details (including Medicare numbers and health fund insurers and the extent of their coverage);
developmental, medical, ethnic, language, cultural and social histories (including medications, diagnoses, surgeries, and allergies) disabilities and impairments;
family histories, to the extent they may be relevant to our assessment, diagnosis and/or treatment of clients;
work and education histories;
hobbies, motivations, interests, and activities in which clients and their families participate; and
financial information concerning the ability of clients to pay for our products and services.

For sensitive information – such as information about your health that is reasonably necessary for us to provide you with services or products – we will seek your consent.

Why do we collect personal information?

We collect personal information to deliver, review and improve the services that we provide. Generally, these services and products relate to occupational therapy. If we didn’t collect this information, we wouldn’t be able to carry out of business or provide our products and services to you in accordance with the standards required by law and the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics. If you do not provide the personal information that we request, we would not be able to carry out our business and provide our products or services to you.

More specifically, we need personal information (including health information) to provide clients with assessment, diagnosis and management services and products related to their occupational therapy. We also need this information:

for administrative purposes of managing our business;
when necessary, to fulfil our obligations under law, regulation and/or Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics;
for billing management (either directly or through insurers or other compensation agencies);
discussions between therapists and others working at our clinic (including other therapists and sub-contractors) related to the care of clients;
discussions and other communications with your doctors, other health professionals, and education professionals in relation to your care;
discussions with insurers; and
any insurance or compensation or other claims or litigation (including threatened litigation).

From time to time, we may use personal information (but not sensitive health information) to provide you with news or offers about our products or services that may be of interest to you. These products and services will be related to our occupational therapy business described above and will be products and services that we believe will be relevant to you. You have a right, at any time, to tell us that you don’t want to receive this type of material.

Ensuring your information is up to date

In performing our functions and activities we rely on the information that we hold about you. For this reason, it is very important that the information we collect from you is accurate, complete and up to date. During the course of our relationship with you, you should advise us of any changes to your information.

Who will see or have access to your personal information?

Your information may be seen or used by people working for or on behalf of Therapy Partners and other service providers including (without limitation):

our directors and shareholders;
our therapists (employed or contracted);
our administrative staff (employed or contracted);
doctors, other health professionals, and education professionals;
our third-party professional advisors and service providers, including (without limitation) our lawyers, book-keepers, accountants, auditors, tax consultants, actuaries, management consultants and IT service providers (including software-as-a-service provider); and
Medicare, private health insurance providers, our insurers and reinsurers.

Access to your Personal Information

You may access the Personal Information we hold about you and to update and/or correct it, subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal Information, please contact us in writing.

Therapy Partners will not charge any fee for your access request, but may charge an administrative fee for providing a copy of your Personal Information. In order to protect your Personal Information we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.

Security of your information

Therapy Partners takes all reasonable precautions to safeguard your information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We employ a number of means to protect your information including:

External and internal premises security

Restricted access to information. Access to information is only permitted to personnel who are trained with respect to collection, use and disclosure of the information; and

IT password protection

We take reasonable steps to securely dispose of all information that is no longer needed for which it was requested, or as required by law. However, we cannot guarantee that the transmission of data over the internet is totally secure. We take reasonable effort to ensure any personal information collected is held securely by installing appropriate anti-virus and firewall software.
E-mails maybe automatically scanned which could result in certain attachments and style of message being held, until authorized and released by our IT Service Provider will not access the content of the e-mails once this process is complete.

When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your Personal Information. However, most of the Personal Information is or will be stored in client files which will be kept by us for a minimum of 7 years.

Want more information?

If you have any questions about this policy, or have any concerns about the personal information you or others have given us about you, please contact Selina Dwyer as Director of Therapy Partners Pty Ltd.
More information on the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) can be found on the website of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. You may also contact the Commonwealth Privacy Commissioner on 1300 363 992 or www.privacy.gov.au

Last Updated: 16 September 2022