The Dentists @ Belmore

Practice Policies

Cancellation & No Show Policy

Here at The Dentists @ Belmore, we try our best to respect your time and we expect our patients to do the same. Arriving late (more than 15 minutes), short notice cancellations and failure to attend leads to disruptions to our patients and staff. As a small privately-owned dental practice, we are financially strained when patients miss appointments. We are not a large corporation and we do not treat our patients as numbers.

We like to give our patients the full scope of our knowledge and care, and we like each patient experience to be personalised, as dental care should be. We aim to provide you with an exceptional service at an affordable cost. Chair time lost to no shows or short notice cancellations impacts our ability to run our small business.

It is in ours and our patients’ best interest that we keep lost chair time to a minimum.

We ask our patients to give at least 24 hour notice before cancellation or rescheduling. It is very difficult to fill in these appointments, so please let us know well ahead of time if you need to reschedule.

Holding your appointment time means turning away other patients in urgent need of dental care. Therefore, any missed or short notice cancellations will attract a cancellation fee of $50.  

Our cancellation policy is as follows:

  • Our patients are required to pay a $50 holding fee to secure their appointment.
  • The holding fee will be taken off the final cost of your appointment.
  • Cancelling an appointment with more than 24 hour notice is absolutely fine. We can accommodate for this.
  • Failing to attend, rescheduling, or cancelling an appointment with less than 24 hours notice leads to a $50 cancellation fee, which means forfeiting the $50 holding deposit.
  • If you wish to re-book after cancelling within 24 hours, you will be required to pay another $50 holding fee.
  • We always send out an SMS reminder or we call our patients well in advance to confirm the appointment.
  • We reserve the right to ask for the cost of treatment upfront before making another appointment. This is a last resort option only if there is a recurring cancellation pattern.
  • New patients who fail to attend or cancel with less than 24 hours notice on two consecutive occasions will not be rebooked.

For long appointments such as whitening or root canals, we will require a deposit at the time of booking.

 

Privacy Policy

Patient privacy is important to The Dentists @ Belmore.

The Dentists @ Belmore is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth) and endeavours to uphold the Australian Privacy Principles in collecting, disclosing, maintaining and securing personal and health information.  We will take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to protect your personal and health information from:

  • Misuse, interference and loss, and
  • Unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

The Dentists @ Belmore requires your consent to collect personal and health information about you.

Why do we collect information?

The Dentists @ Belmore collects relevant personal and health information from you for the primary purpose of providing quality dental care and treatment.

What information do we collect?

The Dentists @ Belmore may collect and store the following types of personal and health information:

  • Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Contact Details - postal and/or street address; email address/es; telephone number/s
  • Family contact information
  • Private health insurance information
  • Information regarding other funding sources, where relevant (e.g. Child Dental Benefits Schedule, Department of Veteran’s Affairs)
  • Medicare number
  • Information on workers compensation, motor vehicle and other accident claims, where relevant
  • Details of your oral health condition and the treatment/s and service/s you have received
  • Details of your general health (e.g. allergies, medications, medical conditions) and medical history that may impact the treatment you receive.

Can you refuse to disclose your information?

You have the right to refuse to provide your information.  If you choose not to provide relevant personal and/or health information it may, however, affect you receiving appropriate care and treatment. 

How will we use your information?

The Dentists @ Belmore may use your personal and/or health information to:

  • Assess your oral health
  • Provide dental treatments and services to you
  • Communicate with other service providers (e.g. specialist dentists, technicians, laboratories) to provide dental treatments and services to you
  • Send communications requested by you
  • Assist with queries you make and provide information and advice about related treatments and services
  • Process payments for treatment – including private health insurance and/or Medicare claims
  • Update our records and keep your contact details up to date
  • Resolve complaints
  • Carry out internal functions such as administration, accounting and information technology

We may also use your personal and/or health information for staff training, professional development, treatment or service development, practice planning, quality improvement and dental health research.  We will use de-identified data for these purposes, unless you consent to being identified.

If we need to use your information for any other purpose, we will generally seek additional consent from you to do this, unless obtaining your consent is not practical or reasonable, and an exception under the Privacy Act 1988 applies.

To whom may we disclose your information?

Only people who need to be able to access your information will be able to do so. The Dentists @ Belmore may disclose your information to:

  • Our dentists and practice staff – to support the provision of dental treatments and services to you
  • Others involved in your dental care outside this practice (e.g. specialists, technicians, laboratories)
  • Your nominated relatives in an emergency
  • Government and regulatory bodies (e.g. Medicare)
  • Third party health benefit providers and insurance companies to assist in the processing of claims for payment/reimbursement
  • Third parties who work with our practice for business purposes  
  • Third parties where this is required to comply with a court/tribunal order or to meet other legislative or regulatory requirements.

Accessing your personal and health information

You may inspect or request copies of your records at any time.

Altering your personal and health information

If any of the information we have about you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, you may ask us to alter our records.