psychological treatment privacy policy terms of use

Mindspot Psychology & EMDR Privacy Policy

Updated 4 November 2024.

Mindspot Psychology's privacy policy describes how and why Mindspot Psychology collects, uses and otherwise handles your information when you access our services.
 

Please take a moment to familiarise yourself with our privacy policy, and contact us or your treating practitioner if you have any questions.

Introduction

This document describes the privacy policy of Mindspot Psychology Pty Ltd (“Mindspot Psychology”, “Mindspot”, “we”, “us”, “our”) and the individual practitioners (“practitioners”) who work as service providers at the Mindspot Psychology offices.
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To provide our services Mindspot Psychology needs to collect your personal and health information. As a health service, Mindspot Psychology is bound by the legal requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

Collection and Use of Information

Mindspot Psychology and our practitioners collects personal information to enable us to provide our services. The information we collect fits into one of two categories:

• Administrative Information – This is to maintain our administrative records and includes      your name, address, contact details, calendaring appointments, Medicare      details, billing information, referring doctor, consent, and other      administrative forms. It may include compliance information such as      contacts with medical practitioners, lawyers, or insurance companies. The      administrative record is held and maintained by Mindspot Psychology.
• Clinical Records – this information is collected to provide effective      treatment or comprehensive assessment. It includes life details, family      history, medical and psychological symptoms, personal concerns, legal      issues, and other relevant issues for psychological assessment and      treatment. It may include diagnoses and psychological test results.       The clinical record is held by your practitioner.
• Optical Images – Mindspot Psychology uses optical surveillance devices in the public areas of the office to enhance the safety of our staff, clients,  and practice security. Your image may be recorded when you visit public areas of our practice, such as reception and the waiting rooms. We do not record individual consulting rooms or other private areas. Any images      recorded are held and maintained by Mindspot Psychology.

There is an ethical obligation for psychologists to make and keep accurate notes about all consultations. You cannot request information to be excluded from the practitioner’s file. If you do not wish for your personal information to be collected in a way anticipated by this Privacy Policy, Mindspot Psychology may not be able to provide services to you.

Storage of Information

The practitioners work independently and are responsible for storing their own client’s clinical information. Mindspot Psychology maintains the storage of administrative records. You can be assured that the practitioners and administration follow both Australian Psychological Society guidelines and Australian Privacy Principles. Please speak to your treating practitioner for specific concerns regarding the storage of your clinical information. Please contact Mindspot Psychology’s reception for issues regarding the maintenance of administrative records, including making any changes. Additionally, if a practitioner leaves the practice, Mindspot Psychology will no longer have access to any clinical notes but will maintain the administrative record.

While you are entitled to withdraw your consent to engage with our services, we are legally required to maintain a copy of both your administrative record and case notes. These records will be stored in accordance with this privacy policy and relevant legislation.

To the best of our knowledge, the computer systems used for administration and clinical record storage are based in Australia, encrypted, and protected. A client’s personal information is not disclosed to overseas or Australian recipients unless the client consents or such disclosure is otherwise required by law. Your personal information will never be used, sold, rented, or disclosed for any purpose other than to provide our services in accordance with consent gained.

Images from optical surveillance devices are securely stored in Australia and are subject to strict access controls. Images are kept for a maximum of nine months before they are securely deleted from our systems unless an exemption is necessary, such as for police warrants or legal processes.

If unauthorised access, disclosure or loss of a client’s personal information occurs, Mindspot Psychology will activate our cyber incident response plan and use all reasonable endeavours to minimise any risk of consequential harm. If there is a risk of consequential harm, Mindspot will notify you in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme (Part IIIC of the Privacy Act).

Disclosure of Information

To provide our services, Mindspot Psychology may be required to disclose personal information to third parties. Disclosure may include, but is not limited to:

• Referring Doctor - To assist in      continuing treatment of problems and for Medicare rebate requirements.
• Insurance company - To enable an Insurer      to make decisions about their liability, funding, or appropriateness of      treatment.
• Court - On subpoena, all relevant      psychological information must be provided to Court.
• Solicitor - To provide reports where      requested (see Court Proceedings section below).
• Church, Agency, Employer or other      Referrer - When a third party has referred you, feedback about how the      treatment is going maybe provided. This would be for funding purposes or      for the organisation to be able to assist you further.
• Other individuals - With your permission,      information may be disclosed to others who can help you. These might      include family members, doctors, schools, or employers.
• Administrative Record information may be      released for debt collection, Medicare Audits, insurance purposes, and      related tasks. When information is released for these purposes, only the      minimum required information will be disclosed.
• Clinical information may be released for      AHPRA compliance and investigations.

Please be aware that the general principles of privacy can be wavered if failure to disclose information places yourself or another person at risk. In other words, if you are deemed a risk of suicide or harming another, we are required to disclose information in order to manage that situation.

Court Proceedings (not general therapy)

In the case of legal proceedings, Mindspot Psychology maybe required to disclose personal or health information to the Court, your lawyer, or an insurer participating in the proceedings. If you have a legal representative acting for you and that person seeks information about you, Mindspot will not release that information without your written authorisation.

Where possible, Mindspot Psychology will endeavour to advise you about the possibility of disclosing personal or health information to a Court.

Requesting Access to your Personal Information

Any request to access your clinical records must be made inwriting and addressed to your treating psychologist. To access your administrative record, a request must be made in writing and addressed to Mindspot Psychology. Be aware that you will be charged a fee (including for photocopying) for Mindspot Psychology to provide you with a copy of any information requested. Please ask for details when you make your request, as you will be solely liable for any associated costs.
 

In some circumstances, Mindspot Psychology or the practitioner has the right to refuse access to your personal information. This may include (but is not limited to) where the information is not about you but is about your child; or where release could cause an unreasonable impact on you or harm you.

‍Additionally, Mindspot Psychology cannot provide information not kept as part of your file. For example, feedback provided via anonymised forms or analytics data from our website is not personally identifiable, and as such, Mindspot Psychology cannot provide you with a copy of that information.

‍If your information was used for a forensic assessment or Court report, we might be able to provide you with a copy of your information which we have on file. Please note that some Courts and other organisations prohibit us from releasing information without their permission. In most cases we cannot distribute any assessments or report(s) to you directly.
 

Please note that your file is the property of the practitioner, and the administrative record is the property of Mindspot Psychology. If you request access to your file, we can only provide a copy, not the original file. Additionally, if a practitioner leaves the practice, Mindspot Psychology will no longer have access to any clinical notes but will maintain the administrative record.

Web Technologies

Website and Social Media Analytics

Mindspot Psychology may collect anonymised, aggerate data when you access or interact with websites, social media pages, marketing campaigns or other digital services we own and operate.

This includes data like the number of visitors or clicks, search terms, how long a page was viewed for, the region and country of the visitor, or the type of device. This does not include personal or individually identifiable information such as IP addresses, specific locations (suburb or address), names, or email addresses.

This data is collected through Google Analytics (when interacting with the Mindspot Website or Google Ads), Microsoft Clarity (when interacting with the Mindspot Website) and Meta Business Suite (when interacting with Facebook or Instagram pages or ads). This data may be collected through cookies, web beacons or other similar technologies.

Mindspot Psychology only uses this data to understand how individuals:

• access and use our digital services to      improve them.
• interact with digital marketing campaigns      to improve them.

SMS

Mindspot Psychology uses SMS messaging to communicate with current clients, primarily to remind them of upcoming appointments. When you become a client with Mindspot Psychology, your mobile number is added to your profile and you will receive SMS reminders automatically. We do not use your phone number for marketing purposes, and at no time is it disclosed to any other party.  

If you do not wish to receive automated appointment reminders via SMS, please contact our reception team in writing who can update your profile.

Making a Complaint

If you are not satisfied with how we have dealt with your personal information, you may wish to lodge a formal complaint about the use of, disclosure of, or access to your personal information. We require any complaint to be made in writing to the Director of Mindspot Psychology and to the individual practitioner. We will determine who needs to address the issue and respond to your complaint within 30 days.
 

If our response is not satisfactory, you can further your complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. This can be done by phone at 1300 363 992, online at the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's Website or by post to Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, GPO Box 5218, Sydney, NSW 2001.

Changes to the Policy

Mindspot Psychology reserves the right to update this policy periodically, and without prior notice to you, to reflect changes either within our practice or in accordance with relevant laws. Any changes to the policy will become effective upon publishing the updated version to the Mindspot website. Continuing to access Mindspot Psychology’s services after an updated version of this policy is published constitutes as acceptance of the revised policy. Mindspot Psychology will endeavour to provide notice about any significant changes to the policy.

Further Information

The protection of our client’s personal and health information is a priority for Mindspot Psychology. If you have any questions about Mindspot’s privacy policy, please contact Mindspot via email or another form of written communication. 

Contacting Mindspot Psychology

Mindspot Psychology can be contacted by:

• Calling: 0484 735 666 or email: hello@mindspot.net.au

Remember that all complaints and requests must be submitted in writing.