Hear With Me

Privacy Policy

Last updated April 23, 2024

In-person services

Hear With Me abides by the Health Privacy Principles (HPP) as set out in the Health Records Act (VIC) 2001. The Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) are set out in the Commonwealth Privacy Act (Cth) 1988. To comply with our obligations under the HPP and HPP, we have policies about how we manage information about you and how you may access that information. Hear With Me takes its obligations under the Health Records Act 2001 and Privacy Act (Cth) 1988 very seriously and would like to take all reasonable steps in order to comply and protect the privacy of personal information that we hold.

Hear With Me collects information from you so we may properly assess, diagnose, treat and be proactive in your health care needs. All members of the professional team (clinical and administrative) involved in your care will have access to your personal information. This means we may use and disclose the information you provide in the following ways:

Disclosure to others involved in your health care, including referring and treating doctors (including your GP); Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) and other medical specialists; allied health professionals such as dentists, physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors, psychologists, speech pathologists; teachers (for children); hearing device supplies including hearing aid and ear mould manufacturers; and others outside this practice.
- We will only disclose your health care information to non-attending family members and friends with your express consent.
- We prefer to use email or post where possible and may occasionally disclose this information by phone. We try to use secure email channels (eg Argus) although this is not always possible. Our calls are recorded for quality and training purposes.
Administrative purposes in running our practice, including our insurer or professional indemnity provider, and quality assurance and accreditation bodies.
Billing purposes, including providing information to your health insurance fund, the Health Insurance Commission (Medicare) and other organisations responsible for the financial aspects of your care.

Consent statement

I have read the information above and understand the reasons why my information must be collected. I am also aware that this practice has a privacy policy for handling information. I understand that I am not obliged to provide any information requested of me but my failure to do so may compromise the quality of health care and treatment given to me. I am aware of my right to access information collected about me, except in circumstances where access might legitimately be withheld. I understand I will be given an explanation in these circumstances. I understand that if my information is to be used for any other purposes than set out about, my further consent will be obtained.

To allow us to provide an extraordinary health care experience for you, Hear With Me requests the following additional waivers:

I consent to being contacted via the phone numbers, email or postal address provided to Hear With Me to confirm appointments or to receive information relevant to my treatment, including results, invoices and receipts. We may leave you voicemail messages or emails concerning your health conditions. A selection of our calls are recorded for quality and training purposes.
That Hear With Me may use emails to communicate your health information and results efficiently with your treating doctors (typically ENT and GP). We prefer to use email or post where possible and may occasionally disclose similar information by phone. We try to use secure email channels (eg Argus) although this is not always possible.
That you allow Hear With Me to use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to more efficiently communicate and customise our messages to you based on your health conditions.
As a research and teaching clinic, that we can use your de-identified patient data and images for audiology research and communication.
We may also contact you regarding research opportunities in case you are interested in participating to advance the broader scientific knowledge base.
That we can display your (never incentivised) reviews on our website.
Use of some of the above technology may mean that some of your data may be held at non-Australian data centres. For an updated list of software in use, view our web site, communication and software privacy policy below.

By attending my appointment at Hear With Me, I consent to the handling of my information by this practice for the purposes set out above, subject to any limitation on access or disclosure that I notify this practice of.

Website, communication and software policies

This website (https://www.hearwithme.com.au) is owned and operated by Hear With Me Pty. Ltd. (ABN 31 642 729 262) and will be referred to as “We”, “our” and “us” in this Privacy Policy. By using this site or submitting any details using our forms, you agree to the Privacy Policy of this website (“the website”), which is set out on this page. The Privacy Policy relates to the collection and use of personal information you may supply to us through your conduct on the web site. This Privacy Policy applies to all personal information collected by Hear With Me Pty. Ltd. via this website.

Safeguarding your privacy is important to us. In particular, we are protective of information that is capable of identifying an individual (“personal information”). This Privacy Policy governs the manner in which your personal information, obtained through the website, will be dealt with. This Privacy Policy should be reviewed periodically so that you are updated on any changes. We welcome your comments and feedback.

Collecting your personal information

The reason we collect your personal information is to better serve you. We use this information to operate our hearing services, to maintain quality of our service, improve your service experience and to obtain general statistics regarding use of this website. Some provision of personal information is optional. However, if you do not provide us with certain types of personal information, you may be unable to enjoy the full functionality of this website or our services.

We collect your personal information if you input any personal information into our website. This includes instances when we receive and answer your requests or enquiries. Primarily, your personal information is collected through the use of the following software partners (refer to their websites for their respective privacy policies):

Our online booking and patient data are collected and utilised by Coreplus (https://www.coreplus.com.au), CliniqApps (https://www.cliniqapps.com), Snapforms (https://www.snapforms.com.au), HotDoc (https://www.hotdoc.com.au), VOIPline (https://www.voipline.net.au) and NOAH (https://www.himsa.com)
Audiology data is collected via Coreplus, NOAH and various hearing aid manufacturers including, but not limited to, Beltone, Oticon, Phonak, GN, Signia , Starkey, Unitron and Widex.
Patient note summaries are processed through Heidi Health (https://www.heidihealth.com/legal/privacy-policy).
Marketing data is collected through CliniqApps (https://www.cliniqapps.com), MailChimp (https://www.mailchimp.com/en-gb) and ActiveCampaign (https://www.activecampaign.com).
Website performance data is collected through Google (https://www.google.com), Hotjar (https://www.hotjar.com), Meta (https://business.facebook.com), Elementor (https://www.elementor.com) and WordPress (https://www.wordpress.org)
Limited data is also shared with our payment gateways and accounting systems. Generally, our service providers will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to allow them to provide the services to us. You should also be aware that certain providers may be located in or have facilities that are located in a different jurisdiction than either you or us. So if you elect to proceed with a transaction that involves the services of a third-party service provider, then your information may become subject to the laws of the jurisdiction(s) in which that service provider or its facilities are located. Please visit their websites to explore their privacy policies including data storage.

In addition, we also collect your IP address and cookies from your computer, which enables us to tell when you use the website and also to help customise your website experience. Our website servers gather your IP address to assist with the diagnosis of problems or support issues with our services. We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. These cookies allow us to increase your security by storing your session ID and are a way of monitoring single user access. This aggregate, non-personal information is collated and provided to us to assist in analysing the usage of the site.

Please note that personal information submitted to our website is used primarily for the purpose for which it is submitted (for example, to book an appointment, or submit an enquiry). We occasionally use this data for secondary purposes that are related to the primary purpose, however, these secondary purposes are disclosed within this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection. Copies of correspondence sent from the website that may contain personal information are stored as archives for record-keeping and back-up purposes only.

For your protection, we seek to adhere to the Australian Privacy Principles provided by the Australian Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) at all times.

Consent

When you provide us with your personal information on our website, such as to book an appointment, send an enquiry or to complete a transaction, we imply that you consent to our collecting your personal information and using it for that specific reason only.

If we ask for your personal information for a secondary reason such as marketing communication, we will either ask for your express consent or provide you with an opportunity to reject our collecting it. If you change your mind after giving your consent, you may withdraw your consent, at any time, by contacting us on the details provided below.

Disclosure

We customarily disclose personal information only to our service providers who assist us in operating the website and providing our services to you. In these circumstances, we may disclose your personal information to these third-party service providers in order to meet your request for goods or services. We will only disclose your personal information to an unrelated third party with your consent.

We may disclose your personal information without notice if we are required by law enforcement to do so or if you breach certain terms and conditions of the website and we decide to investigate or report such breach. Personal information may be disclosed in special situations where we have reason to believe that doing so is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against anyone damaging, injuring, or interfering (intentionally or unintentionally) with our rights or property, users, or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities. Also, we may disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that the law requires disclosure.

Security

We strive to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personal information submitted to our websites, and we review and update our security measures in light of current technologies to ensure that data is not inappropriately lost, misused, accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure.

However, we will endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect the personal information you may transmit to us or from our online products and services. Once we do receive your transmission, we will also make our best efforts to ensure its security on our systems. Data is backed up on external hard drives periodically and while these are held securely, it may be subjected to events of theft or damage or other unauthorised access to your personal information that we cannot be held responsible for.

Where there are breaches, we will report any incidences to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and notify you as required. You can always talk to us if you are dissatisfied with our handling of any incidents.

In addition, all our employees and associated workers, including contractors, who require access to your personal information in providing and optimising services to you are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us. We encrypt all data when it is transferred to our service providers and provide limitations on access to personal information within our organisation. However, we cannot be held responsible for events arising from unauthorised access to your personal information.

You should also be aware that certain providers may be located in or have facilities that are located in a different jurisdiction than either you or us. This may occasionally be held outside of Australia. In such instances, your information may become subject to the laws of the jurisdiction(s) in which that service provider or its facilities are located. We encourage you to visit our third-party providers’ websites to explore their privacy policies and security principles.

Links to External Websites

We occasionally provide links to other websites or applications where we feel it might provide you with more information or assistance. Please note that these websites and applications are outside of our control and we cannot accept responsibility for their privacy policies, advice and practices. When you move away from our website, you are no longer governed by this website’s Privacy Policy. Before disclosing your personal information on any other website or application, we advise you to examine the terms and conditions of the linked website and its privacy statement.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to modify or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. This Privacy Policy is in addition to any other terms and conditions applicable to this website. We do not make any representations about third party websites that may be linked to the website. Any changes published to this website is deemed to be immediately in effect, and your continued use of our website indicates that you have read and agreed with these updates.

Access to your information

We try to take all reasonable steps to ensure your information is held securely, accurately and up-to-date. The Australian Privacy Act 1998 (Cth) allows you to get access to, and correct, the personal information we hold about you in certain circumstances. To do so, please contact us using the details provided below.

Please note that all our employees and associated workers, including contractors, who require access to your personal information in providing and optimising services to you are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us.

Erratum

While we try and ensure that our website is free from error, we find that errors inevitably arise. We do not intend to deceive nor mislead and seek to present information with positive intention. If you noticed any errors or confusion anywhere on our website, please let us know using our contact details below. We would gladly appreciate the opportunity to rectify our error(s).

Questions, Issues or Concerns

We value your privacy and are committed to safeguarding your privacy. If you have any questions or concerns after reading this Privacy Policy, notice any errors, or if you have an issue or complaint, please contact us. If we become aware of any ongoing concerns or issues with our website, we will take these issues seriously and work to address these concerns.

Get in touch with our Privacy Officer by emailing welcome@hearwithme.com.au or by post to PO Box 235, Ivanhoe, VIC 3079.

For more information about protecting your privacy in Australia, please visit the Australian Federal Privacy Commissioner’s web site https://www.privacy.gov.au/.