Patient Information & FAQs

Results

Our admin staff at Nelson Plaza Clinic cannot give results over the phone without the doctor’s approval. An appointment is required with your regular doctor to receive your results.

Repeat Prescriptions and Referrals

These are not generally provided outside a consultation.

For regular patients, repeat prescriptions and referrals can be requested via HotDoc. There is a fee associated with this service if the request is approved by the doctor.

Requesting a repeat prescription or referral does not guarantee the doctor will be able to provide it.

Appointments

Appointments with doctors are made at 10 – 15 minute intervals. Longer appointments are available. Please advise reception staff if you require a longer appointment time or have transport or mobility difficulties. Some appointments are kept available for patients to book on the day.

First appointment:
A first appointment requires substantial paperwork. It is requested that patients attend the Clinic 10 minutes prior to their first appointment. Often your history will need to be obtained from other doctors, and you will be asked to return once this has been obtained.

Waiting:
Nobody likes to be kept waiting, and we are all aware of this and try to adhere to appointment schedules. However, the unpredictable nature of a medical practice means that doctors sometimes run behind time. This is mostly due to a patient requiring urgent medical attention. We sincerely regret any inconvenience caused to patients when we fall behind with our appointment schedule.

Cancellations:
If you no longer need your appointment please telephone the Clinic to cancel so another patient can book the appointment.

After Hours

If you need assistance when practice is closed use these resources:

In an emergency call 000 or attend Tomaree Community Hospital

GP access in Newcastle available 1300 130 147

Health Direct 1800 022 222 (available 24 hours)

Regular patients of Nelson Plaza Clinic can seek urgent clinical advice when the clinic is closed from the on-call doctor on 0493 034 257. This service is NOT bulk billed and will incur a fee of $200 (and no rebate may apply)

Electronic Communication and Confidentiality

There are multiple ways Nelson Plaza Clinic may communicate with patients and third parties via electronic means.

Electronic communication includes:
Email
SMS
Phone Calls

Patients must be aware that any communication they direct to the surgery via email is NOT secure and confidentiality cannot be guaranteed.

Patients communicating through email do so at their own risk.

If you do choose to contact the surgery via email this will be considered as patient consent to reply via email.

We will not email you unless your email address has been verified by us, this means you will need to send us an email first then we will reply to your email consent.

We endeavour to reply to all emails within 1 business day, however, they are not constantly monitored.

We need to ensure that your mobile number is up to date at each visit to ensure that this information is sent to the correct number.

If you have an issue that requires urgent attention, we request that you contact the practice via telephone.

SMS communication includes:
• Appointment reminders – a reminder message will be sent the day prior to your appointment.
• Health reminders (eg: cervical screening)
• Health recalls (eg: follow up of test results)

Website communication includes:
• Opening hours
• Fees and services
• Online appointment booking
• Doctors’ profiles

Facebook communication includes:
• Practice updates
• Health promotions

Phone Calls – Nelson Plaza Clinic may communicate with patients via phone calls. All staff and Doctors will confirm the patient’s identity with 3 forms of Identification prior to discussing confidential information.

Privacy Policy

Introduction

At Nelson Plaza Clinic we are committed to protecting the privacy of patient information and the handling of your personal information in a highly secure and responsible manner.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how you may make a complaint about a breach of privacy legislation.

This Privacy Policy is current from October 2023. From time to time, we may make changes to our policy, processes and systems in relation to how we handle your personal information. We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect any changes. Those changes will be available on our website and in the practice.

For administrative and billing purposes, and to enable the patients to be attended by other medical practitioners and allied health providers at Nelson Plaza Clinic, patient information is shared between medical practitioners and allied health providers at Nelson Plaza Clinic only.

Collection

We collect information that is necessary and relevant to provide you with medical care and
treatment, and manage our medical practice. This information will include the following:

• Name, address, date of birth, gender, contact details (telephone/mobile number, fax number, email address),
• Medicare care card number (for identification and claiming purposes),
• DVA and/or Centrelink concession numbers
• Healthcare identifiers, and
• Medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors.

This information will be stored on our protected computer medical records system as electronic records and as visual – x-rays, CT scans, videos and photos.

Wherever practicable we will only collect information from you personally. However, we may also need to collect information from other sources such as treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals, and other health care providers.

We collect information in various ways, such as over the phone or in writing, in person whilst you are at Nelson Plaza Clinic or over the internet if you make your appointments with us online. This information may be collected by medical and non-medical staff.

In emergency situations we may also need to collect information from your relatives or friends.

We may be required by law to retain medical records for certain periods of time depending on your age at the time we provide services.

Use and Disclosure

Personal information held by Nelson Plaza Clinic will only be used for the purpose of providing medical services and for claims and payments, unless otherwise consented to. Some disclosure may occur to third parties engaged by or for the Practice for business purposes such as accreditation or for the provision of information technology. These third parties are required to comply with this policy.

Nelson Plaza Clinic will inform the patient where there is a statutory requirement to disclose personal information (for example: some diseases require mandatory notification by Government Health Departments).

Nelson Plaza Clinic will not disclose personal information to any third party other than in the course of providing medical services, without full disclosure to the patient or the recipient, the reason for the information transfer and consent from the patient.

Exceptions to disclose without patient consent are where the information is:

• Required by Law
• 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.
• To assist in locating a missing person
• To establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim.
• For the purpose of a confidential dispute resolution process.

Nelson Plaza Clinic will not use any personal information in relation to direct marketing to a patient without that patient’s express consent. Patients may opt out of direct marketing at any time by notifying the practice.

Data Quality and Security

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, up to date and relevant. For this purpose, our staff will ask you to confirm that your contact details are correct when you attend your consultation. We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.

Personal information that we hold is protected by:
• securing our premises.
• placing passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access and protect electronic information from unauthorised interference, access, modification, and disclosure; and
• providing locked cabinets and rooms for the storage of physical records

Corrections

Nelson Plaza Clinic will take reasonable steps to correct information where it is satisfied they are not accurate or up to date.
If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, we ask that you contact us in writing (see details below).

Access

You are entitled to request access to your medical records. We request that you put your request in writing, and we will respond to it within a reasonable time.
There may be a fee for the administrative costs of retrieving and providing you with copies of your medical records.
We may deny access to your medical records in certain circumstances permitted by law, for example, if disclosure may cause a serious threat to your health or safety. We will always tell you why access is denied and the options you have to respond to our decision.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about the privacy of your personal information, we request that you contact us in writing. Upon receipt of a complaint, we will consider the details and attempt to resolve it in accordance with our complaints handling procedures.
If you are dissatisfied with our handling of a complaint or the outcome you may make an application to:
The Office of Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
Phone Number: 1300 363 992
www.oaic.gov.au

or

Information and Privacy Commission
New South Wales – 1800 472 679
www.ipc.nsw.gov/privacy

Overseas Transfer of Data

We will not transfer your personal information to an overseas recipient unless we have your consent, or we are required to do so by law.

Nelson Plaza Contact

Please direct any queries, complaints, requests for access to medical records to:

Attention: The Privacy Officer / Manager
Address: 29 Stockton Street, Nelson Bay NSW 2315
Or
PO Box 755, Nelson Bay NSW 2315
Email: clinic@nelsonplaza.com.au

This practice is bound by the Privacy Act (Cth) (1988), The Australian Privacy Principles and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act (NSW) (2002) when handling your personal information.