Blissful Psychology

Privacy Policy

Blissful Psychology is committed to providing quality services to you and this policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your Personal Information.

We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act) and the Health Records Act 2001 (Victoria). 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 Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.

Our Privacy Policy applies to the personal information we handle about clients, prospective clients, visitors to our website, users of services we provide and members of the public. By accessing our website or using our services, you agree to be bound by the terms of our Privacy Policy.

What is Personal Information and why do we collect it?

Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Examples of Personal Information we collect includes names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers. We collect your Personal Information to carry out functions or activities such as:

assessing whether we are an appropriate service for you
providing you with psychological services such as assessing, diagnosing, and treating psychological issues or preparing reports
sending you communications via SMS or email to, for example, remind you about your future appointments, provide you with treatment resources and questionnaires and send you a copy of your invoices
enabling you to receive the correct entitlements to benefits and funding for our services from third-party payers and to comply with their requirements
responding to your enquiries, requests or feedback
updating our records and keeping your information up to date.

What types of Personal Information do we collect, and how do we collect it?

We and our psychologists collect Personal Information for the purposes of arranging appointments and delivering psychological services as well as communicating with you. We may collect information via our website located at www.blissfulpsychology.com.au (“Website”), from clients when they register an enquiry, book an appointment, attend our practice, through our client consent forms, or in the course of undertaking our services and treatment through clinical notes, treatment records and correspondence (such as referral letters and reports) that our psychologists receive or create in the course of providing counselling services to you.

The kind of Personal Information we may collect may include your full name, address, email address, date of birth, contact details, Medicare details, billing information, general appointment information and other sensitive personal information such as medical and mental history, and current medications. If you do not provide us with all the information we request, our psychologists may not be able to deliver their services.

In some cases, we may need to collect certain information from third parties such as: your referring GP or psychiatrist, your other healthcare providers and support service providers, if you are a minor, your parent/guardian, and your private health fund or Medicare, in relation to billing and claims issues.

We will generally try to collect information about you directly from you, where this is reasonable and practicable. In most cases, we will only collect information from third parties that you would reasonably expect, or which we have discussed with you. If there is an emergency, we may need to collect information from your emergency contact person (if provided) or other people who may be able to assist (such as your family or close friends). When we collect Personal Information, we will, where appropriate and where possible, explain to you why we are collecting the information and how we plan to use it.

How do we store and secure Personal Information?

We hold Personal Information as either hard copy records, or electronically in our practice management system and other IT systems. We use third party IT service providers to host our website servers, manage our IT systems and host our practice management system.

We use a range of physical, electronic and operational security measures to protect the Personal Information that we hold, including by storing our hard copy records in secure filing cabinets, using reputable IT service providers to store our electronic records, and providing privacy and client confidentiality training to our psychologists and administrative staff.

Your Personal Information is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. We have policies and procedures in place to destroy or de-identify Personal Information once it is no longer needed for a valid purpose or required to be kept by law. We are legally required to hold clients’ Personal Information for a minimum of 7 years from the date of last entry in your record or if you are a minor until you attain or would have attained 25 years of age.

Disclosure of Personal Information

There are circumstances where we may be permitted or required by law to disclose your Personal Information to third parties. Common situations in which we may disclose your Personal Information to third parties are when you consent to the use or disclosure to others, and/or it is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order.

Access to your Personal Information and Corrections

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. We 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. It is important to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up to date. If you find that the information we have is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We will update our Privacy Policy when our information handling practices change. Any information we hold about you will be governed by our current Privacy Policy. We recommend that you periodically review our Privacy Policy for any changes.

Concerns and complaints about your privacy

You may contact us at any time if you have any questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy or how your Personal Information has been handled. If you have a complaint about how we have handled your Personal Information, please contact us in writing. We will investigate and respond to the complaint within 30 days. We will determine what (if any) steps we should take to resolve the complaint. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or if you wish to request access to your personal information, correct or update your details or raise any privacy concerns you may have, please contact us at info@blissfulpsychology.com.au.

Last updated in June 2024.