Privacy Policy
The LifePsyche Patient Privacy Policy (“Patient Privacy Policy”) has been drafted to comply with the requirements of the ten National Privacy Principles (NPPs) embodied in schedule 3 of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). The NPPs will apply to all personal information collected by LifePsyche Pty Ltd (‘LifePsyche’) in the course of performing psychological services for our clients.
How to contact us about privacy
Your privacy is very important to us. For that reason, please read the following details carefully and get in contact with us if you have any questions. You can contact us at: admin@lifepsyche.com.au to discuss any of the matters detailed in the Patient Privacy Policy, our internal procedures for ensuring that our staff comply with the NPPs, or any other areas of concern to you in relation to your personal information. If you are unable to access the Patient Privacy Policy online, please phone us at our listed contact number 0428 600 279 to discuss.
Who We Are
LifePsyche is a psychology and nutrition practice located on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. We recognise and support the rights of our clients to privacy and confidentiality in respect of their personal information and have created the Patient Privacy Policy to outline the purposes for which we can collect or use such information. In furtherance of this aim, all employees of LifePsyche are required to sign confidentiality obligations.
Why We Collect Personal Information
Any personal information received by us will be used strictly for the purposes of conducting our business and allowing us to provide you with our psychology and counselling services.
Please refer to our LifePsyche Website Privacy Policy for information on our principles with respect to website visitors.
Collection of Personal Information
Where reasonable and practicable and consistent with the law, we will aim to allow our clients to interact with us anonymously or pseudonymously or otherwise to only provide us with the personal information with which they feel comfortable providing us. However, in some instances withholding your personal information may be inconsistent with our ability to provide you psychological services.
Personal information collected by us may include:
- your name, date of birth, and contact details;
- your Medicare number, health fund information, or other healthcare identifier;
- your medical information; and
- information collected from you during the course of psychological services for the purpose of providing you with further services or otherwise complying with our legal or professional requirements.
Personal information may be collected by us:
- through referral documentation or medical reports provided to us;
- from information provided by you before, during or after the provision of psychology or counselling services;
- from correspondence between you and LifePsyche Pty Ltd; or
- in any other way consistent with psychological services best practices.
Your personal information may be kept in hard-copy, electronically, or both, and may where necessary include audio or visual information.
Disclosure of Personal Information
The personal information collected by you will only be used with your express consent except where otherwise required by law or where the disclosure of the information is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to your safety or the safety of someone else.
Access and correction
National Privacy Principle 6 of the Australian Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) allows you to get access to, and correct, the personal information we hold about you in certain circumstances. If you would like to obtain such access, please contact us at admin@lifepsyche.com.au. If we can comply with the request for access to your information, we may require you to pay for the reasonable costs entailed in time as well as for any associated costs (e.g. photocopying). It is very important that all information kept by us be accurate and up to date. For this reason, we urge you to inform us of any changes to your personal information.
Storage of information
We have processes in place to ensure the security of all electronically stored personal information, including encryption of all data when it is transferred to our service providers and limitations on access to personal information within our organisation.
Any hard-copy information kept by us will be locked securely in a room accessible only to LifePsyche staff. In some cases, storage of your electronic information may occur by way of third party services meaning that your information may not be stored in Australia. By undertaking psychological services with LifePsyche, you are taken to have consented to the overseas storage of your personal information.
Duration of Storage
The Code of Ethics of the Australian Psychological Society requires that we keep your client records for the later of either: seven years; or your twenty-fifth birthday if you had undertaken psychological services as a minor. We will keep your records for this period of time, or any later time otherwise prescribed by law.
Questions and Complaints
If you have any questions for us about our privacy policy, or if you believe that we have breached the National Privacy Principles or the principles embodied in the Patient Privacy Policy, please contact us at admin@lifepsyche.com.au.
If you do not then feel that we have adequately responded to or resolved your complaints, please contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at GPO Box 5218, Sydney NSW 2001.
Changes to Privacy Policy
Our Patient Privacy Policy may change from time to time in response to new needs or new legal requirements. If our Patient Privacy Policy changes, we will post an amended LifePsyche Patient Privacy Policy on the relevant page of the LifePsyche website. Where practicable, we will notify you of the changes in person or by way of a statement on our front page or via social media.