Privacy Policy.

The practice may collect personal and health information that is reasonably necessary to provide healthcare and operate the practice. This may include names, contact details, dates of birth, referral information, relevant clinical information, appointment details, billing information and communications with patients, referrers, hospitals and other healthcare providers.

Information may be received directly from a patient, their representative, a referring practitioner, another healthcare provider, a hospital or through an authorised website form.

Information may be used to respond to enquiries, arrange appointments, coordinate referrals, provide clinical care, organise investigations, procedures and hospital admissions, communicate with healthcare providers, manage billing and satisfy professional, administrative and legal requirements.

Information may be disclosed where reasonably required for these purposes, including to referring practitioners, hospitals, pathology and imaging providers, anaesthetists, assistant surgeons, allied healthcare providers, billing services and authorised technology providers.

The practice does not sell patient or website-user information.

This website includes a callback-request form and a healthcare-practitioner referral-request form.

Information entered into these forms is used by the practice team to respond to the enquiry, review the referral and coordinate the requested service.

Submitting a form does not confirm an appointment or replace direct clinical assessment. Website forms must not be used for emergencies, rapidly deteriorating patients or other urgent clinical concerns.

Referring practitioners should only submit patient information where they are authorised to disclose it for referral and healthcare coordination.

Users should avoid entering information that is not reasonably required for the purpose of the form.

This website uses Google Analytics 4, or GA4, to understand how visitors use the site and to improve website content, navigation and performance.

GA4 may collect information such as pages viewed, session activity, approximate geographic location, referral source, browser type and device information using cookies or similar technologies.

This includes general use of the business-card landing page at /card, and interactions with navigation, telephone and contact links.

Internet Protocol addresses may be used by Google Analytics at the time of collection to derive approximate location information but are not made available to the practice through standard Analytics reporting.

The practice does not intentionally send names, contact details, dates of birth, telephone numbers, email addresses, form responses, referral details or clinical information to Google Analytics.

Analytics information is used only to improve the website. It is not used for advertising or for patient profiling.

Analytics information is handled in accordance with the applicable Google privacy and data-processing terms.

The practice takes reasonable steps to protect personal and health information from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Information may be handled through practice-management, communication, website-hosting, form-processing, email, analytics and other technology services used to operate the practice.

Some technology providers may process or store information outside Australia. The practice uses reputable service providers and takes reasonable steps to ensure that information is handled appropriately.

Information is retained only for as long as reasonably required for clinical, administrative, professional, legal and record-keeping purposes, after which it is securely deleted or de-identified where appropriate.

A small number of technology providers support the operation of this website:

• Lovable and its hosting and server infrastructure deliver the website and process website requests.
• Cloudflare Turnstile performs bot and abuse verification, and may receive network and device information such as an Internet Protocol address and browser characteristics.
• Resend provides transactional email delivery for form notifications.
• The practice email service receives those form notifications.
• Google Analytics 4 processes general site-usage data as described above.

The contents of the callback request form and the healthcare practitioner appointment request form are transmitted to the practice by email. This website has no database, and form submissions are not stored on the website or by the website host. Once an email has been sent, the information is held only within the practice email system and is managed in accordance with this policy.

These technical services may retain limited operational and security logs. The practice does not intentionally place form contents into analytics or error logs.

The technology providers described above operate global infrastructure. As a result, information handled through this website may be processed or stored outside Australia, including in the United States. Provider locations and infrastructure arrangements may change over time.

The practice takes reasonable steps appropriate to the circumstances when selecting and using these providers, including relying on their published privacy and data-processing terms. The practice does not represent that information handled through this website is stored only in Australia.

Patients may request access to personal information held about them or ask for information to be corrected where it is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.

Privacy questions, access or correction requests, and concerns about how information has been handled may be directed to the practice rooms.

The practice will review privacy concerns and respond within a reasonable period. Additional information or identity verification may be requested before personal or health information is released.

Email: admin@colonsurgery.net
Telephone: 03 9081 7757

If you have a concern about how your personal or health information has been handled, please contact the practice rooms first, by email at admin@colonsurgery.net or by telephone on 03 9081 7757.

The practice will review the concern and respond within a reasonable period. Identity verification may be requested before personal or health information is discussed or released.

If the matter remains unresolved, a privacy complaint may be made to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-complaints.

A complaint concerning Victorian health information may also be made to the Victorian Health Complaints Commissioner at hcc.vic.gov.au/make-complaint.