How Cortex Telehealth collects, uses, stores and protects your personal and health information.
Initial consults are by video.
Your health information is personal. This policy explains, in plain English, what information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how we keep it safe, and how you can see or correct it.
We handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles, and health information in line with the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW) and its Health Privacy Principles.
Cortex Telehealth is the trading name of Cortex Health Solutions Pty Ltd (ABN 91 682 317 077). Consultations are provided by Brett Jones, Nurse Practitioner. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Cortex Telehealth.
We are a telehealth-only practice. We see adults aged 18 and over, and we do not knowingly collect information about anyone under 18.
Our address is Suite 1, 234 Baylis Street, Wagga Wagga NSW 2650. Email info@cortextelehealth.com.au. Phone 1800 194 512: calls go to voicemail, so please leave a message and we will call you back.
We only collect the information we need to provide safe care and run the practice. This may include:
Health information is “sensitive information” under privacy law, and we give it a higher level of protection.
Wherever we can, we collect information directly from you: when you book, when you complete your online intake and consent forms, during your consult, and when you contact us.
Sometimes we receive information from others involved in your care, such as pathology results from a laboratory or letters from another health practitioner. We only collect information from others when you have agreed, when it is needed for your care, or when the law allows it.
We collect, use and hold your information to:
We never sell your personal or health information, and we never share your health information with other organisations for their marketing. We only send you emails about our own services if you have opted in (see section 7).
By booking and completing your intake forms, you consent to us collecting and using your information to provide your care as described in this policy. We will ask for your specific consent before doing something you would not reasonably expect, such as sending information to a new practitioner.
Agreeing to receive emails about our services is separate and optional (see section 7). It is never a condition of booking or receiving care.
You can withdraw or change your consent at any time by telling us. If that limits what we can safely do, we will explain how.
Messages about your care. Whether or not you opt in, we will contact you about your appointments and your care. For example, we send booking confirmations, appointment reminders, follow-up about your results or care plan, and receipts. These are service messages, not marketing. If you don’t opt in, these are the only messages you will get from us.
Optional emails about our services. If you give us your express consent, we may send you occasional emails about Cortex Telehealth services that may be relevant to you. To choose what may be relevant, we use only your age and gender. We don’t use your health information, clinical notes, test results or the services you have used with us to choose what to send.
How we ask. Opting in is always optional. We ask with an unticked checkbox on our booking or intake forms, or by inviting you to reply to an email from us. We only send these emails if you actively say yes, and we keep a record of your consent and the date you gave it.
What every email includes. Each of these emails identifies Cortex Telehealth (Cortex Health Solutions Pty Ltd, ABN 91 682 317 077), includes our contact details, and tells you how to unsubscribe.
Changing your mind. You can withdraw your consent at any time, free of charge, by:
We will action your request within 5 business days. Unsubscribing won’t affect your care, and you will still get messages about your appointments and care. You can also ask us where we got the contact details we use. We collect them directly from you.
We never sell your health information. We never sell your health information or share it with third parties for their marketing. We send these emails ourselves, using the systems listed in section 10.
With your consent, we use Heidi, an AI note-taking tool, to help write clinical notes during your consult. You are asked about this on the booking forms.
You can say no, and it will not affect your care in any way. You can also change your mind at any time, including during a consult. Your health practitioner reviews every note before it becomes part of your record, and remains responsible for it.
We only share your information when it is needed for your care, when you have agreed, or when the law requires or allows it. This may include:
We also use trusted service providers to run the practice (see the next section). They handle your information only to provide their service to us.
Each provider has its own privacy and security terms. We choose providers built for, or suitable for, handling health information.
Your records are stored electronically in the systems above. We take reasonable steps to protect your information from misuse, loss and unauthorised access, such as limiting access to the people who need it, using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication where available, using secure connections, and keeping our devices and software up to date.
We use Australian-hosted services where our providers allow it. Some cloud providers may store, back up or process information outside Australia, or their support staff may access it from overseas. Where that happens, we take reasonable steps to make sure your information is handled in line with the Australian Privacy Principles.
Please don’t send symptoms, photos or test results by email. Email is for general questions. If you do email health information, we will treat it as part of your health information and may ask you to continue in a booked consult.
Under NSW law, we keep health records for adults for at least 7 years from your last contact with us. After that, records may be securely destroyed or de-identified, unless we need to keep them longer for a legal reason.
You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, and ask us to correct anything that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading. Email info@cortextelehealth.com.au. We will need to confirm your identity first.
We aim to respond within 30 days. There is no fee to ask. If providing copies involves significant cost, we will tell you about any reasonable charge before we go ahead.
In limited situations the law allows us to refuse access, for example if giving access would pose a serious threat to someone’s life, health or safety. If we refuse or can’t make a correction, we will tell you why in writing and how to complain, and you can ask us to attach a statement to your record.
You can ask general questions without telling us who you are. For clinical care, dealing with us anonymously or under a pseudonym is generally not practicable: we need to identify you to give safe care, keep accurate records, and send pathology requests and prescriptions.
You can read this website without giving us your personal details.
Your choice comes first. When you first visit, we ask whether you agree to analytics and advertising measurement. Nothing in this section runs until you choose, and if you choose “Reject all”, none of it runs. You can change your choice at any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page. We store your choice in your browser for up to 180 days.
If you agree to Analytics, we use Google Analytics (Google LLC) to count visits and see which pages are used: the page address (without personal details or most of the web address after the “?”), the page you came from, device and browser type, approximate location (city or region), and whether you clicked “Book”, our phone number or our email address. We have turned off Google signals and advertising personalisation for Google Analytics.
If you agree to Advertising measurement, we use Google Ads (Google LLC) and the Meta Pixel (Meta Platforms, Inc.) to learn whether our ads led to someone viewing our booking page or contacting us. These tools only run on general pages, such as our home, fees, about, contact and booking pages. They don’t run on pages about particular health topics or on our patient forms. We only send standard events (“page view”, “lead”, “contact”) with no details about you, your health or your booking. We don’t use this information to build advertising audiences or to show you personalised ads, and we don’t upload patient lists to Google or Meta.
What we never send to Google or Meta: your name, email, phone number, date of birth, health information, answers to forms, appointment type or booking details.
Booking through Halaxy. Our booking page shows Halaxy’s booking window. What you enter there goes to Halaxy, not to this website. Our Halaxy booking pages do not currently run our own analytics or advertising tags. Halaxy, as the booking provider, may use its own tools under its own privacy policy.
Overseas disclosure. Google and Meta may process this website information in the United States and other countries where they or their service providers operate.
Opting out. Use “Cookie settings” on any page. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser, or use Google’s opt-out browser add-on (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout). Some parts of the site, including booking, may not work properly if you block all cookies.
We are covered by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. If a data breach is likely to cause serious harm to anyone, we will act quickly to contain it, assess it, and notify the people affected and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as the law requires.
If you have a concern about how we have handled your information, please contact us first, by email at info@cortextelehealth.com.au with “Privacy” in the subject line, or by post to our address above. We will acknowledge your complaint, look into it, and aim to respond within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au, or the NSW Information and Privacy Commission at ipc.nsw.gov.au.
We may update this policy from time to time, for example if our systems or the law change. The current version is always on this page, with the date it was last updated.
Cortex Telehealth (Cortex Health Solutions Pty Ltd, ABN 91 682 317 077). Suite 1, 234 Baylis Street, Wagga Wagga NSW 2650. Email info@cortextelehealth.com.au. Phone 1800 194 512 (calls go to voicemail, so please leave a message).
