When you go to the doctor, you would assume the medical staff are treating your personal information with the care and professionalism it deserves, regardless of how much you’re paying for the visit.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case for patients at one medical chain operating in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, which is reportedly telling them to hand over valuable personal details if they wish to be bulk-billed.
If they don’t, they will have to pay the usual $90 for a GP visit minus the Medicare rebate.
Our Medical, privately owned by Cornerstone Health, operates around 30 medical, dental and radiology clinics across eastern Australia. The company heavily promotes its bulk-billing facilities.
In June, the company sent emails to its customers outlining a new rewards program, consumer group CHOICE reports. Nothing out of the ordinary, but buried at the bottom of the email was the line “non-members will be charged a private fee to see a GP.”
An Our Medical customer, who did not wish to be named, told CHOICE she attended the company’s clinic in Penrith, in Sydney’s western suburbs, and was told she had to create an account with the Our Medical app and rewards program in order to make an appointment.
She says she was told there would be a $90 fee for the appointment if she did not sign up.
Our Medical’s privacy policy says personal and health information collected on individual patients can be used “to conduct business processing functions including providing personal information to our related bodies corporate, contractors, service providers or other third parties”.
The policy also says that if the member permits device location settings on the device they are using for the rewards program, then their location will be tracked.
So, as it stands now, customers have a choice between paying $90 to see their GP or giving up personal identifying information.
Professor Jeannie Paterson, co-director of the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics at the University of Melbourne, says the practice is most likely not illegal. But she did describe it as “ethically outrageous”.
She says the policy’s statement that it will share data with third parties is “ridiculously unclear and undefined” and that using patients’ data for research and marketing is not what one would expect when signing up for a medical service.
“It’s so difficult for consumers to manage their personal information and their sensitive information because they’re used to dealing with doctors where the parameters and the ethics are well understood and well regulated,” Prof. Paterson says.
“Now we’re in that grey zone of dealing with digital platforms or digital health intermediaries where the assumptions that we had about how medical professionals handle information simply don’t apply,” she adds.
A spokesperson for Cornerstone Health told CHOICE the requirement to sign up to their app is legal and medical facilities are under no obligation to bulk bill any patients.
“However, general practice medical services are available on a bulk-billing basis at Our Medical to patients who have joined the rewards program. General practice medical services are available on a private billing basis to all other patients.
“Cornerstone Health handles all personal information in accordance with relevant privacy and health records legislation,” they add.
Do you use any Our Medical facilities? Have you received this email? Let us know in the comments section below.
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