Practice Protect Program

We are going to deliver education and resources showing you key areas of risk in your practice, as well as providing information on how to mitigate those risks and the necessary documents and templates for your practice. The areas Practice Protect will cover include:

1st Month: Promote your Practice

You’ll learn how to advertise your practice legally without running into trouble with AHPRA, or any other professional body, how to protect yourself when using images and case studies in your practice's marketing, and develop your own Advertising Framework customised to your needs. Included in the Framework is:

Summary of the National Law

Social Media Policy

Patient Image Publication Consent Form

Checklist for the Use of Images

Checklist for the Use of Testimonials and Reviews

Summary of AHPRA Advertising Guidelines, which were updated in December 2020.

2nd Month: Owning It Online

Website Terms and Conditions are a preventative measure against potential claims that may be made by a user. Every business is unique, and your practice is no exception. This month you will receive education on what your business needs to be aware of when engaging with your patients through your website, how to protect your business from any risks, and put together your customised website terms and conditions covering:

Permitted use of your website;

Online booking terms and conditions;

A description of products and services offered including; Telehealth terms and conditions; Bulkbilling and Medicare; and Terms relevant to children and young people;

Disclaimers relating to limitations of liability;

Confidentiality; and

Ownership of intellectual property.

If you are using webinars or videos to promote your practice on-line a disclaimer will be an important item to protect you online.

3rd Month: Transact with Tenants (Allied Health)

Many practice’s rent rooms to allied health or pathology and we're going to hone in on your relationship with your tenants in this module. If you are permitting a third party to do business on your property, this unit will take you through how to set up your relationship for success, what needs to be covered (like the bathroom and kitchen use), and how to protect yourself from liability.

Then you’ll create your own customised Licence Agreement For Use with Allied Health Professionals.

4th Month: Engaging With Doctors

This unit is all about engaging with your Doctors. We’ll show you what to look for in your agreements, what needs to be in there, and how to decide what kind of agreement you need.

Appropriate template Employee and Contractor Agreements are essential tools for any practice. Properly drafted contracts provide an important framework to govern your key relationships and mitigate future risk.

In this unit, you’ll put together Template GP Employment & Independent Contractor Agreements for your doctors to ensure those integral relationships are covered.

5th Month: Supporting Staff

In this unit, we’ll get into defining the roles of your supporting staff. As much as the squeaky wheels get the grease, the people who support your practice tend to just get on with it. Make sure you’re not missing something by creating new Employment Agreements for your supporting staff, ensuring you’re complying with the Award requirements and legislation for these important members of your team.

6th Month: Taking Care of Nurses

This unit we’ll get into Nurses, and how to manage your relationship with them. Make sure you’re protecting your practice and your people, by creating new Employment Agreements for your Nurses, ensuring you’re complying by award requirements and legislation for these important members of your team.

7th Month: Committed to Confidentiality

A standard Confidentiality Agreement is an essential tool in any practice. Protecting the Practice’s Intellectual Property, brand assets, copyright, patient lists and trade secrets. The practice can quickly and efficiently deploy the agreement, before entering into any discussions in which confidential information may be shared. This unit you’ll become an expert on the risks associated with managing your practice’s records, and how to deploy and manage confidentiality agreements with your team.

When would you be thinking about using one? Well, you could ask your IT provider or cleaners to complete one (depending on the terms you have with them already), if you were looking at buying or selling your practice, or if you had something you wanted certain team members to keep confidential, you might ask them to sign one on top of what is already included in their employment agreements.

You will receive access to three customisable versions of our confidentiality agreement:

Mutual (both parties need to share confidential information)

You sharing confidential information

You receiving confidential information

8th Month: Granting Consent

Consent is a big topic for medical practitioners and it often gets lumped in with confidentiality, we will provide you with tools to assist you in establishing when consent is needed, and how you might obtain it and know you have it.

9th Month: Privacy & Data Breach Framework

The Privacy Act (the Act), including the Australian Privacy Principles, govern the way that the Company collects, stores and uses personal information. As a health service provider, your practice will be collecting sensitive health information, which is afforded greater protection under the Act. The Practice comes within the meaning of a Prescribed Entity for the purposes of the Act and must have a fully compliant Privacy Policy and procedures in place.

Privacy is not just a legal obligation. It is an essential tool that can be used to develop trust with your community and ensure the confidence of its stakeholders; from care providers to patients, to the beneficiaries of charitable activities.

It is essential that your practice has a Privacy Breach protocol in place. This will set out the process of investigating privacy breaches and notification where required.

In this unit, you will update your privacy policy, create a privacy compliance checklist, and create a Privacy and Data Breach Notification Manual (including checklists and templates for you to use in the event of a data breach)

10th Month: Executive Retention

Your Practice Manager is an executive in your practice. So how do you manage such an important and vital relationship? With an agreement. In this unit you’ll learn how to:

convey information about the terms and conditions of employment;

provide clarity to both the employer and employee about their rights and obligations;

exclude any unwanted terms which may otherwise be implied;

facilitate executive performance (and in many cases create mechanisms to measure and encourage improved or higher performance); and

protect the legal interests of both parties, particularly in the termination of employment and its consequences.

Then you’ll create a customised agreement for you to deploy in your business.

11th Month: Protect your Patch

A Deed of Indemnity, Access and Insurance is a contract between a company Director and the Company that provides Directors with rights to company documents and protection from liability.

The indemnity operates to indemnify directors against certain liabilities incurred whilst acting in their professional capacity, including defence costs and, in some cases, judgement orders. It is important to note that there are some statutory limitations on the ability of a company to indemnify its directors. A company cannot indemnify directors for conduct that did not arise in good faith, for any liability to the company itself, or for certain statutory penalties or compensation orders.

A Deed of Indemnity, Access and Insurance also provides your directors with the right to access company documents, particularly in the event the director is required to defend themselves in a proceeding.

Typically, this type of Deed will also include an obligation on the company to hold Directors and Officers Insurance, specifying the period of cover, the limit of cover and any coverage extensions.

In this unit, you will learn what you need to know about how to protect your business, and it’s interests from liabilities that may arise, then create a Deed of your own to manage the relationship between your practice and your directors.

12th Month: Developing Practice Succession

You may not know what you need to think about when it comes to succession planning for your practice, we will guide you through the opportunities, including building a very important document for your practice – a Delegation of Authority to protect you, your practice and also your team members.