About
About our team
Here at Trinity Medical Centre we pride ourselves on our ability to work as a team with patients health as our priority.
We have a friendly team of reception staff, doctors, nurses and a practice manager who work professionally and efficiently to provide a high level of health care to the local community.
Reception staff: Carol, Fiona, Terri, Grace, Brooke, Elise, Tanya and Dhruvi.
Practice Manager: Helen
Doctors: See Our GPs.
Nurses: Rosealan (RN), Suzanne (RN), Ramona (EN) and Sophie (EN)
Mixed Billing
Medicare and Veterans Affairs:
Trinity Medical Centre is a mixed billing practice. We are currently still bulk billing patients who have a current concession card and/or are under 16 (See the front page of the website or speak to our friendly reception staff for individual fees for all other patients) This is with the exception of Dr Farzan who charges all patients after 6pm Monday to Friday and on the weekends.
Work Cover and Motor Vehicle Accident Claims:
For all work cover or insurance claims we must be notified within 3 months of a claim number from the relevant payer or patients will need to provide payment for services on the day.
Overseas Patients:
Overseas patients will need to pay a cash fee on the day of consultation, which can vary from doctor to doctor depending on services provided. Patients may be able to claim this back later from their travel insurance company.
New Born Patients:
All new born patients who do not have a current Medicare card will be charged the regular Medicare fee and will need to seek reimbursement from Medicare for any consults prior to the child getting a Medicare card.
Allied Health appointments:
Ask our friendly reception staff for details regarding fees for appointments made with allied health professionals consulting at our surgery, these fees vary.
Appointments
We are an appointments based medical centre. Please call us on 8258 1677, find us on Hotdoc or come in a speak to one of our friendly staff to make an appointment at 31 Bagster Road, Salisbury North.
Appointment durations: The majority of our GP appointments are 10 minutes in duration, unless otherwise specified by the doctor.
If required some of our GPs have the capability to do home visits for patients who need it. Speak to reception staff about requesting a home visit from your doctor.
Reasons for appointments: Patients must make appointments to get results, prescriptions, medical certificates, to obtain any information from the doctor, to get referrals to specialists or allied health professionals and for any following up from previous appointments.
Walk ins: Walk ins are welcome but appointments are preferred. Patients attending without an appointment will be seen by the next available doctor, however, appointments will have priority. If walk ins cannot be fitted in patients will be triaged, advised and directed appropriately by trained reception staff or doctors.
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Emergencies: Bear in mind we are not an emergency service, in an emergency call 000.
After closing hours: If you are calling for a Doctor between 8pm -11pm Mon- Fri
please ring 0432 226 952 and you will be connected to the Principal Doctor of TMC.
After 11pm during weekdays and after hours on weekends, please call the National Home Doctor Service on 13 74 25 or Family Home Doctor on 1300 695 628.
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Please note: If you are not able to attend your appointment, we require at least 2 hours notice to cancel so we are can then offer the appointment to others. If your appointment is with our nurses, please give 24 hours notice as these appointments are harder to refill.
As of May 2021 Trinity Medical Centre reserves the right to charge a cancellation fee/non-attendance fee of $50 if you do not call us 2 hours prior to the appointment time.
This fee will apply to all patients 18 years and over.
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Note: If you call our surgery phone numbers after hours you will be directed to a home doctors service.
Practice Policies
Reminder System
This surgery encourages its patients to have regular health checks. To assist some patients, particularly those at risk, we run a reminder system for preventative health issues such as pap smears, immunisation, cholesterol, blood pressure, annual health examinations and all other regular tests. If you do not wish to be included on our reminder schedule please inform our receptionists on your next visit. Patients are reminded that in most cases they will be asked to make an appointment for their results and it is essential for them to do so.
House Calls
The doctors at this surgery may do home visits if and when available, and nursing home visits where medically appropriate. If you require this service please contact the surgery, if possible on the morning, and our receptionists will discuss with our doctors to arrange appropriate action.
Feedback
If you have any suggestions and concerns we would like to hear them. Please feel free to talk to our practice manager, your doctor or you may like to use our suggestion box located at reception.
Telephone calls - not related to appointments
If you need to speak to a doctor in regards to something that is not related to making an appointment, receptionists will check if the doctor is available. If the doctor is busy receptionists will take a message and the doctor will call you back when they are available. Please take into consideration the doctor may be busy and may take time to return your call. If the doctor is available at the time of your call, receptionists will put the call through to the doctor. (For confidentiality reasons our GPs will not communicate with patients clinically via email) Email may be used if an agreement is made between doctors and patients but for select document transfer only. Email is not a secure form of communication and therefore will not be offered as a means of transferring confidential information.
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Child Safety Policy
We pride ourselves on having a commitment to child safety and wellbeing, we have an up to date child safety policy in our practice.
Privacy Information
Your personal health information will only be accessed by authorised persons for the management of your care and will not be used or released without your consent. Unidentifiable information may be used for research purposes. For further information regarding our privacy policy please see below.
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Complaints
Local State and Territory complaints body:
HCSCC - 1800 232 007
Nurses Board phone number - 8223 9777
Our practice manager and Principal partner receive all feedback and complaints regarding the surgery. As a team we aim to improve our service in response to feedback and our principal partner and practice manager will respond to all complaints personally and efficiently where possible.
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Trinity Medical Centre – Salisbury North
Policy for the Confidential Management of your health information
Current as of: 29/10/2021
Introduction
This privacy policy is to provide information to you, our patient, on how your personal information (which includes your health information) is collected and used within our practice, and the circumstances in which we may share it with third parties.
Why and when your consent is necessary
When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for our GPs and practice staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.
Why do we collect, use, hold and share your personal information?
Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding, and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes (e.g staff training).
What personal information do we collect?
The information we will collect about you includes your:
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names, date of birth, addresses, contact details
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medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
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Medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
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healthcare identifiers
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Third party, W/C, MVA details
Dealing with us anonymously
You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym unless it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals. For billing purposes, we must have your correct details on file, matching Medicare, however, we can list an appropriate preferred name, if this is requested by yourself.
How do we collect your personal information?
Our practice may collect your personal information in several different ways.
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When you make your first appointment our practice staff will collect your personal and demographic information. We collect this verbally and via a new patient information form which we ask you to fill out on your first visit, this ensures your correct details are double checked.
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During the course of providing medical services, we may collect further personal information. This information may be collected via electronic transfer, my health record or shared health summaries.
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We may also collect your personal information when you send us an email or SMS, telephone us or make an online appointment using HOTDOC.
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In some circumstances personal information may also be collected from other sources. Often this is because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from:
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your guardian or responsible person
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other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services
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your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (as necessary).
When, why and with whom do we share your personal information?
We sometimes share your personal information:
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with third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy
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with other healthcare providers
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when it is required or authorised by law (e.g. court subpoenas)
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when it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent
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to assist in locating a missing person
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to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim
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for the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process
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when there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (e.g. some diseases require mandatory notification)
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during the course of providing medical services, through eTP, My Health Record (e.g. via Shared Health Summary, Event Summary).
Only people who need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.
We will not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.
Our practice will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent. If you do consent, you may opt out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing.
How do we store and protect your personal information?
Your personal information is stored at our practice in electronic record form. The only other time there may be correspondence regarding yourself in paper format would be if we receive correspondence from an outside source addressed directly to your doctor. This will be stored electronically but can also be printed for your doctor to site. In some instances, we may have forms containing some information e.g. license forms, this would be in paper format due to doctors needing to fill these out and return them to your on your visit. All correspondence on site that is not being picked up by yourself is stored electronically and not kept onsite in paper format after being picked up.
Our practice stores all personal information securely. This is done through a clinical program that is protected by password access. All staff are required to sign and adhere to confidentiality agreements upon employment.
How can you access and correct your personal information at our practice?
You have the right to request access to, and correction of, your personal information.
Our practice acknowledges patients may request access to their medical records. We require you to put this request in writing addressed to your regular GP and our practice will respond within a reasonable time after corresponding with your GP. Patients will only be charged for the cost of complying to the request, if appropriate e.g. postage, copying, staff time etc.
Our practice will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate or up to date. From time to time, we will ask you to verify that your personal information held by our practice is correct and current. You may also request that we correct or update your information, and you should make such requests in writing to the practice manager at trinitymc@internode.on.net.
How can you lodge a privacy-related complaint, and how will the complaint be handled at our practice?
Trinity Medical Centre take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure. You can lodge your complaint via email to: trinitymc@internode.on.net or via post to Trinity Medical Centre, 31 Bagster Road, Salisbury North, SA, 5108. For any queries regarding how to lodge a complaint please call 82581677 and speak to one of our friendly staff. We aspire to respond to complaints within 7 days.
Alternatively, the Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner (HCSCC) helps people – service users, carers and service providers to resolve complaints about health and community services, when a direct approach to the service provider is either unreasonable or had not succeeded.
Email: info@hcscc.sa.gov.au
Phone: (08) 8226 8666 or 1800 232 007 toll free from landline in country South Australia
Fax: (08) 8226 8620
Enquiry service Monday to Friday, 9.00 am to 5.00 pm
For further information visit their website at: https://www.hcscc.sa.gov.au/
You may also contact the OAIC. Generally, the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond before they will investigate.
For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992.
Privacy and our website
We do not collect information or communicate with patients through our website or social media sites for confidentiality reasons. Your privacy is important to us, and any correspondence or complaints received via social media will be dealt with professionally and confidentially through another format if follow up is required.
Policy review statement
This privacy policy will be reviewed in accordance with any changes that occur. If and when changes occur to this policy patients will be informed via our website, our social media page (Facebook) and with signage in our waiting room.