POPI act/ POPIA
In the normal course of general medical practice, New Street Surgery needs to process patient information. We are committed to protecting your personal information and complying with legislation including Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and the Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act.
POPI Act requires, inter alia, that you are informed about what information is collected, how it is processed and stored and for what purpose.
A. INFORMATION COLLECTED BY NEW STREET SURGERY
1. PERSONAL INFORMATION
This includes ID or Passport numbers, contact details, next of kin and other family member details, marital status, medical aid details (including number, members and plan type), employer (if relevant) and the details of the person responsible for the account.
This information may also include, but is not limited to, other personal information that may be relevant to your health care, such as gender, sex, race, pregnancy status, disability, religion, matters of conscience, belief, culture, language, location, occupation, mental or physical health, travel history or ethnic or social origin.
2.CLINICAL INFORMATION
This is information about and which is relevant to your health care and includes, but is not limited to documents such as medical notes, referral letters, pathology and radiology requests and reports, prescriptions to nominated pharmacies, reports to and from other medical professionals, diagnoses and treatments, sick notes and allergies.
3. BILLING INFORMATION
This includes ICD 10 codes (a legal requirement for medical aid claims), dates of consultations, patient name, applicable authorisation numbers and relevant procedure codes.
4. LEGITIMATE FORMS
This includes insurance medical forms, immigration forms, Death Certification, and sundry forms where applicable and relevant, such as skipper's licences, HSFA, NSRI, Occupational Health assessments and VWS forms.
5. CORRESPONDENCE
This includes letters and emails relevant to your healthcare that you may send to the practice or a specific doctor, or letters related to your health care that we may send you.
B. HOW THIS INFORMATION IS OBTAINED
Information is provided by patients as well as relatives (such as a spouse or parent) or by a legal guardian (in the case of a minor) or other legitimate informant (with the express permission of the patient, where possible).
Information is also obtained from appropriate clinical reports and clinical correspondence (for example, from a referring doctor or allied health professional).
C. WHERE THIS INFORMATION IS KEPT AND STORED
Your personal, appointment, clinical and billing information is processed and stored on MEDEDI and Practice Perfect, both of which are reputable, password protected software systems, widely used by medical professionals and committed to safely storing clinical notes and billing information while protecting patient confidentiality.
Your clinical notes are only visible to the doctors and the practice manager (for the purpose of relevant filing or administrative functions). Your billing and contact information is visible to reception staff, the doctors and the practice manager.
Sometimes, especially after hours, correspondence takes place on the practice phone and may be stored on this. The practice phone is shared by the doctors, and is password protected. Correspondence and stored contact details on the phone are erased from time to time when no longer relevant.
Emails and other correspondence are stored on password protected computers. These are deleted from time to time when no longer relevant or required to be stored. Some important correspondence may be stored on the password protected clinical note system.
Written correspondence and reports are filed and stored in a room that is locked when not in use. Where possible, written correspondence is scanned and stored in the password protected clinical notes system. Hard copies are then destroyed if no longer needed or required.
D. WHO THIS INFORMATION MAY BE SHARED WITH
1. Clinical and relevant personal information may be shared, as appropriate and legally authorised, with other medical professionals such as specialists, when relevant to your health care.
2. Medical aids require ICD 10 codes, date of consultation, procedures charged for as well as any medical equipment billed. If you specifically do not want the information sent to the medical aid or recorded on the bill, please speak to your doctor at the end of the consultation, and they can bill you privately without submitting ICD 10 code. The main member of a medical aid account may receive the information processed on the account. Some medical aids eg Discovery Health, have care programs which require sharing of clinical information eg HealthID. You will be required to give your consent before this is allowed to happen and you will be informed via SMS that the permission has been given. Please familiarise yourself with your medical aid rules before granting this consent. Medical Aids will sometimes request/ require information from us regarding a specific claim or to register for chronic conditions or additional benefits eg sports benefit or Extended Care Program or COVID WHO funding.
3. Health assessments for insurance applications eg Life or Disability insurance require confidential sharing of reports with the relevant Insurance company. Please remember that when you apply for insurance, there is a standard consent to disclose relevant clinical information as a part of the application, and the application will not be processed without consent. Sometimes Insurance companies will request further medical history or summaries where necessary for the application to be processed. Please speak to your broker about this if you have any queries.
4. Billing and required personal information will be processed by MEDEDI (CGM), a reputable electronic switch company. Your information can also be processed by a collection agency, DUVESCO, if handed over for collection after 90 days non-payment.
5. Legitimate forms may be shared (as legally required or as consented) with the issuing authority eg PDP (road traffic department), medical insurance company, NSRI, care home, immigration authority, Home Affairs, university, au pair agency or other legitimate authority.
6. Sick notes are governed by HPCSA requirements, labour law and POPI act. Sick notes require the name of the patient and doctor, qualifications and registration details of the doctor, date attended, dates booked off and special provisions. Diagnosis is generally not required. Sometime employers may contact doctors to check that notes are legitimate.
7. In the case of Occupational Health assessments, some clinical information may be required by or shared with the employer or a regulating authority. Please talk to your employer and the doctor involved for more clarity on what will and won't be shared in this instance.
8. Correspondence is by nature shared with another party, and is independently subject to the information and data protection and processing of the institution or correspondent.
E. YOUR RIGHT TO ACCESS/ AMEND/ REMOVE YOUR INFORMATION ON OUR SYSTEM.
1. You have the right to see what information of yours is stored and to ask that it be amended or updated.
2. In the case of the normal functioning of a General Medical Practice, these rights are, however, subject to some limitations set out for medical professionals by the Health Professions Council of South Africa. For instance, health professionals are required to keep records for at least 6 years under normal circumstances, till a child is 18 in the case of children or obstetrics. Some occupational health records must be kept for life eg asbestos exposure cases. Clinical notes can be amended, but not altered, and any amendments must be dated and recorded as such.
3. In general, we endeavour to destroy records that are no longer relevant or in use, where we are permitted to do so by law.
4. If you are relocating or moving to another practice, you have the right to ask that the notes or a summary of your records be transferred to a new nominated practice or registered health care practitioner.
F. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KEEP YOUR INFORMATION UPDATED
You have the responsibility to let New Street Surgery know if any of your information needs updating, such as change in contact information or medical aid details, relevant clinical information from other medical professionals or personal information eg marital status or telephone number.
Please check with the receptionists that the information we have is correct, especially telephone numbers and email address (check our spelling please)
G. WHERE TO DIRECT ANY CONCERNS OR COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE USE OF YOUR INFORMATION.
If you have any concerns or complaints about how your information is obtained, processed, stored or used, please raise these with your doctor or the Practice Manager.
If you are not satisfied that your concerns have been dealt with adequately, please direct correspondence to the New Street Information officer and we will attempt to address your concerns and communicate our actions to you.
Formal complaints can be directed to : The Information Regulator at www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/
POPI Act requires, inter alia, that you are informed about what information is collected, how it is processed and stored and for what purpose.
A. INFORMATION COLLECTED BY NEW STREET SURGERY
1. PERSONAL INFORMATION
This includes ID or Passport numbers, contact details, next of kin and other family member details, marital status, medical aid details (including number, members and plan type), employer (if relevant) and the details of the person responsible for the account.
This information may also include, but is not limited to, other personal information that may be relevant to your health care, such as gender, sex, race, pregnancy status, disability, religion, matters of conscience, belief, culture, language, location, occupation, mental or physical health, travel history or ethnic or social origin.
2.CLINICAL INFORMATION
This is information about and which is relevant to your health care and includes, but is not limited to documents such as medical notes, referral letters, pathology and radiology requests and reports, prescriptions to nominated pharmacies, reports to and from other medical professionals, diagnoses and treatments, sick notes and allergies.
3. BILLING INFORMATION
This includes ICD 10 codes (a legal requirement for medical aid claims), dates of consultations, patient name, applicable authorisation numbers and relevant procedure codes.
4. LEGITIMATE FORMS
This includes insurance medical forms, immigration forms, Death Certification, and sundry forms where applicable and relevant, such as skipper's licences, HSFA, NSRI, Occupational Health assessments and VWS forms.
5. CORRESPONDENCE
This includes letters and emails relevant to your healthcare that you may send to the practice or a specific doctor, or letters related to your health care that we may send you.
B. HOW THIS INFORMATION IS OBTAINED
Information is provided by patients as well as relatives (such as a spouse or parent) or by a legal guardian (in the case of a minor) or other legitimate informant (with the express permission of the patient, where possible).
Information is also obtained from appropriate clinical reports and clinical correspondence (for example, from a referring doctor or allied health professional).
C. WHERE THIS INFORMATION IS KEPT AND STORED
Your personal, appointment, clinical and billing information is processed and stored on MEDEDI and Practice Perfect, both of which are reputable, password protected software systems, widely used by medical professionals and committed to safely storing clinical notes and billing information while protecting patient confidentiality.
Your clinical notes are only visible to the doctors and the practice manager (for the purpose of relevant filing or administrative functions). Your billing and contact information is visible to reception staff, the doctors and the practice manager.
Sometimes, especially after hours, correspondence takes place on the practice phone and may be stored on this. The practice phone is shared by the doctors, and is password protected. Correspondence and stored contact details on the phone are erased from time to time when no longer relevant.
Emails and other correspondence are stored on password protected computers. These are deleted from time to time when no longer relevant or required to be stored. Some important correspondence may be stored on the password protected clinical note system.
Written correspondence and reports are filed and stored in a room that is locked when not in use. Where possible, written correspondence is scanned and stored in the password protected clinical notes system. Hard copies are then destroyed if no longer needed or required.
D. WHO THIS INFORMATION MAY BE SHARED WITH
1. Clinical and relevant personal information may be shared, as appropriate and legally authorised, with other medical professionals such as specialists, when relevant to your health care.
2. Medical aids require ICD 10 codes, date of consultation, procedures charged for as well as any medical equipment billed. If you specifically do not want the information sent to the medical aid or recorded on the bill, please speak to your doctor at the end of the consultation, and they can bill you privately without submitting ICD 10 code. The main member of a medical aid account may receive the information processed on the account. Some medical aids eg Discovery Health, have care programs which require sharing of clinical information eg HealthID. You will be required to give your consent before this is allowed to happen and you will be informed via SMS that the permission has been given. Please familiarise yourself with your medical aid rules before granting this consent. Medical Aids will sometimes request/ require information from us regarding a specific claim or to register for chronic conditions or additional benefits eg sports benefit or Extended Care Program or COVID WHO funding.
3. Health assessments for insurance applications eg Life or Disability insurance require confidential sharing of reports with the relevant Insurance company. Please remember that when you apply for insurance, there is a standard consent to disclose relevant clinical information as a part of the application, and the application will not be processed without consent. Sometimes Insurance companies will request further medical history or summaries where necessary for the application to be processed. Please speak to your broker about this if you have any queries.
4. Billing and required personal information will be processed by MEDEDI (CGM), a reputable electronic switch company. Your information can also be processed by a collection agency, DUVESCO, if handed over for collection after 90 days non-payment.
5. Legitimate forms may be shared (as legally required or as consented) with the issuing authority eg PDP (road traffic department), medical insurance company, NSRI, care home, immigration authority, Home Affairs, university, au pair agency or other legitimate authority.
6. Sick notes are governed by HPCSA requirements, labour law and POPI act. Sick notes require the name of the patient and doctor, qualifications and registration details of the doctor, date attended, dates booked off and special provisions. Diagnosis is generally not required. Sometime employers may contact doctors to check that notes are legitimate.
7. In the case of Occupational Health assessments, some clinical information may be required by or shared with the employer or a regulating authority. Please talk to your employer and the doctor involved for more clarity on what will and won't be shared in this instance.
8. Correspondence is by nature shared with another party, and is independently subject to the information and data protection and processing of the institution or correspondent.
E. YOUR RIGHT TO ACCESS/ AMEND/ REMOVE YOUR INFORMATION ON OUR SYSTEM.
1. You have the right to see what information of yours is stored and to ask that it be amended or updated.
2. In the case of the normal functioning of a General Medical Practice, these rights are, however, subject to some limitations set out for medical professionals by the Health Professions Council of South Africa. For instance, health professionals are required to keep records for at least 6 years under normal circumstances, till a child is 18 in the case of children or obstetrics. Some occupational health records must be kept for life eg asbestos exposure cases. Clinical notes can be amended, but not altered, and any amendments must be dated and recorded as such.
3. In general, we endeavour to destroy records that are no longer relevant or in use, where we are permitted to do so by law.
4. If you are relocating or moving to another practice, you have the right to ask that the notes or a summary of your records be transferred to a new nominated practice or registered health care practitioner.
F. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KEEP YOUR INFORMATION UPDATED
You have the responsibility to let New Street Surgery know if any of your information needs updating, such as change in contact information or medical aid details, relevant clinical information from other medical professionals or personal information eg marital status or telephone number.
Please check with the receptionists that the information we have is correct, especially telephone numbers and email address (check our spelling please)
G. WHERE TO DIRECT ANY CONCERNS OR COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE USE OF YOUR INFORMATION.
If you have any concerns or complaints about how your information is obtained, processed, stored or used, please raise these with your doctor or the Practice Manager.
If you are not satisfied that your concerns have been dealt with adequately, please direct correspondence to the New Street Information officer and we will attempt to address your concerns and communicate our actions to you.
Formal complaints can be directed to : The Information Regulator at www.justice.gov.za/inforeg/