Privacy Details
This Website
This website is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal data when you visit our website, including:
Information about your browser, network and device
Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website
Web pages you view while on this website
Your IP address
Squarespace needs the data to run this website, and to protect and improve its platform and services. Squarespace analyzes the data in a de-personalized form.
Booking
We do online booking using the calendly.com platform. You can find out how they manage your information and privacy here.
Payments
We collect online deposits when you book an appointment. We use paypal for deposits. Their privacy policy can be found here.
Our Office PolicY - The DETAILS
Commitment to Privacy The appropriate collection, use and disclosure of patients’ personal health information is fundamental to our day-to-day operations and to patient care. Protecting the privacy and the confidentiality of patient personal information is important to the physicians and staff at Immigration Medical Examinations (IME).
We strive to provide our patients with excellent medical care and service. Every member of IME must abide by our commitment to privacy in the handling of personal information. This policy was last modified on October 1 2019.
Applicability of This Privacy Policy Our Privacy Policy attests to our commitment to privacy and demonstrates the ways we ensure that patient privacy is protected. Our Privacy Policy applies to the personal health information of all our patients that is in our possession and control.
What is Personal Health Information? Personal health information means identifying information about an individual relating to their physical or mental health (including medical history), information about the care provided to the individual, and information about payments provided.
The 10 Principles of Privacy Our Privacy Policy reflects our compliance with fair information practices, applicable laws and standards of practice.
1. Accountability We take our commitment to securing patient privacy very seriously. Each physician and employee associated with the Practice is responsible for the personal information under his/her control. Our employees are informed about the importance of privacy and receive information periodically to update them about our Privacy Policy and related issues.
2. Identifying Purposes: Why We Collect Information We ask you for information to file a report on your behalf to the immigration authorities of Canada or New Zealand. If you have abnormal results, we will also use your information to arrange appropriate care for you.
We obtain most of our information about you directly from you, or from other health practitioners whom you have seen and authorized to disclose to us. You are entitled to know how we use your information and this is described in the Privacy Statement posted at IME. We will limit the information we collect to what we need for those purposes, and we will use it only for those purposes. We will obtain your consent if we wish to use your information for any other purpose.
3. Consent You have the right to determine how your personal health information is used and disclosed. For most health care purposes, your consent is implied as a result of your consent to treatment. Your written Consent will be collected when you register with us. If you do not consent to our collection, use or disclosure of your health information, we will not be able to file an immigration exam report on your behalf.
In some situations your consent directive may also result in delays in receiving health care, reduced quality of care due to healthcare provider’s lacking complete information about the patient, and healthcare provider’s refusal to offer non-emergency care.
PHIPA is the Ontario law regarding personal health information. It permits certain collections, uses, and disclosures of your personal health information, despite or regardless of your consent directive. Healthcare providers may override your consent directive in certain circumstances, such as emergencies.
4. Limiting Collection We collect information by fair and lawful means and collect only that information which may be necessary for purposes related to filing a report on your immigration examination, and any required provision of medical care as a result of that exam.
5. Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention The information we request from you is used for the purposes defined. We will seek your consent before using the information for purposes beyond the scope of the posted Privacy Statement.
Under no circumstances do we sell patient lists or other personal information to third parties.
There are some types of disclosure of your personal health information that may occur as part of this Practice fulfilling its routine obligations and/or practice management. This includes disclosing to consultants and suppliers to the Practice, on the understanding that they abide by our Privacy Policy, and only to the extent necessary to allow them to provide business services or support to this Practice.
We will retain your information only for the time it is required for the purposes we describe and once your personal information is no longer required, it will be destroyed. However, due to our on-going exposure to potential claims, some information is kept for a longer period.
Patients may be required to sign and date a Consent to Disclose Personal Health Information Form and pay a fee based on current OMA rates prior to release of information.
6. Commitment to Privacy The appropriate collection, use and disclosure of patients’ personal health information is fundamental to our day-to-day operations and to patient care. Protecting the privacy and the confidentiality of patient personal information is important to the physicians and staff at IME. We strive to provide our patients with excellent medical care and service. Every member of IME must abide by our commitment to privacy in the handling of personal information.
7. Safeguards: Protecting Your Information We protect your information with appropriate safeguards and security measures. The Practice maintains personal information in a combination of paper and electronic files. Recent paper records concerning individuals’ personal information are stored in files kept onsite at our office. Older records may be stored securely offsite.
Access to personal information will be authorized only for the physicians and employees associated with the Practice, and other agents who require access in the performance of their duties, and to those otherwise authorized by law. We provide information to health care providers acting on your behalf, on the understanding that they are also bound by law and ethics to safeguard your privacy. Other organizations and agents must agree to abide by our Privacy Policy and may be asked to sign contracts to that effect. We will give them only the information necessary to perform the services for which they are engaged, and will require that they not store, use or disclose the information for purposes other than to carry out those services.
Our computer systems and software are password-secured and constructed in such a way that only authorized individuals can access secure systems and databases.
We will send you an email to let you know your results were normal and have been submitted. If you don’t wish to receive an email like this, we can phone you instead.
We will ask how you want to communicate if your results are not normal: by phone or email. We understand that some people prefer to communicate personal health information by email, because they find it difficult to communicate in English by phone. Please remember that e-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication is very sensitive, you should not send it electronically unless the e-mail is encrypted or your browser indicates that the access is secure. We will do our best to communicate by person or by phone in those situations.
8. Openness: Keeping You Informed The Practice has prepared this plain-language Privacy Policy to keep you informed. You may view a copy by visiting our website at www.imemed.ca. If you have any additional questions or concerns about privacy, we invite you to contact us by phone and we will address your concerns to the best of our ability.
9. Access and Correction We will give you access to the information we retain about you within a reasonable time, upon presentation of a written request and satisfactory identification. We may charge you a fee for this service and if so, we will give you notice in advance of processing your request. If you find errors of fact in your personal health information, please notify us as soon as possible and we will make the appropriate corrections. We are not required to correct information relating to clinical observations or opinions made in good faith. You have a right to append a short statement of disagreement to your record if we refuse to make a requested change. If we deny your request for access to your personal information, we will advise you in writing of the reason for the refusal and you may then challenge our decision.
10. Challenging Compliance We encourage you to contact us with any questions or concerns you might have about your privacy or our Privacy Policy. We will investigate and respond to your concerns about any aspect of our handling of your information. In most cases, an issue is resolved simply by telling us about it and discussing it.
If, after contacting us, you feel that your concerns have not been addressed to your satisfaction, you have the right to complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. The Commissioner can be reached at: 2 Bloor Street East, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8 1-800-387-0073 1-416-325-9195