Our policies

The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for Live Your Story Counselling & Disability Services and its website: http://liveyourstory.com.au

Confidentiality and exceptions

The privacy of all communications between a client and a therapist is protected by law, and the therapist can only release information about you to a third party with your written permission. However, there are a few exceptions. In most legal proceedings, you have the right to prevent your therapist from providing any information about your treatment. In some proceedings involving child custody and those in which your emotional condition is an important issue, a judge may ask for your therapist’s testimony, if he/she determines that the issues demand it. There are some situations in which your therapist is legally obligated to take action to protect others from harm.

For example, if your therapist believes that a child, elderly person, or disabled person is being abused, he/she must file a report with the appropriate state agency. If he/she believes that you are threatening serious bodily harm to others, he/she is required to take protective actions. These actions may include notifying the potential victim, contacting the police, or seeking hospitalization for the client. If you threaten to harm yourself dangerously, your therapist may be obligated to seek hospitalisation for you or to contact your family members or others who can help provide protection.

These situations have rarely occurred in our practice. If a similar situation occurs, your therapist will make every effort to fully discuss it with you before taking any action. While this written summary of exceptions to confidentiality should prove helpful in informing you about potential problems, it is important that you discuss any questions or concerns that you may have with your therapist before the end of the first session.

Information gathered prior to and during the sessions is strictly confidential and will be stored securely for 5 years. After this time, it may be destroyed. Information (NOT including name, address and date of birth or any information that may specifically identify a client) may be used for research purposes, professional writing or teaching of hypnosis, and for further development of research study. 

Information gathering and use of information
Our web server software generates logfiles of the IP addresses of computers that access this website and of what files they access. These web server logs are retained on a temporary basis and then deleted completely from our systems. We also may ask our visitors to provide information about themselves. We may use cookies to maintain a user's identity between web sessions.

We do not provide any personally identifiable information we gather or develop about our visitors to any third parties for any purpose. We use your IP address and files you access to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our Web site by identifying: (1) which parts of our site are most heavily used, and (2) which portion of our audience comes from within the network. We also use this information to tailor site content to user needs and to generate aggregate statistical reports. At no time do we disclose site usage by individual visitors.

Consent
By engaging us or registering your details on our Website or by email or telephone, and/or using the Website or completing a client consent form or otherwise engaging our services, you consent to us and our staff collecting, using and disclosing your personal information (including Health Information) for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy. 

Data security and quality:
We will take reasonable steps to protect the personal information we collect and hold from misuse, loss and interference and from unauthorised access and modification, and to make sure it is accurate, complete and up-to-date when we collect, use or disclose it. To assist us, please ensure you provide us with your correct details and let us know if you believe the information we have about you is inaccurate, incomplete, out of date or misleading (and we will take reasonable steps to correct the information). We may take steps to destroy or permanently de-identify information when it is no longer needed for any purpose for which it may be used or disclosed. We may retain and use de-identified information.

Cookies

The website may use “cookies”; technology to store data on your computer using the functionality of your browser. Many websites do this because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like finding out whether the computer has visited the site before. You can modify your browser to prevent cookie use – but if you do this our service (and our Website) may not work properly. The information stored in the cookie is used to identify you. This enables us to operate an efficient service and to track the patterns of behaviour of visitors to the Website.

Access, correction and complaints
You can request, and we will provide you with access to, any personal information we hold about you (including any Health Information) (subject to any applicable legal exceptions). Please also let us know if you have any concerns or complaints about the way we are handling your personal information so we can address them. Requests should be submitted by email to admin@liveyourstory.com.au Where our records are found to be inaccurate, we will promptly rectify any inaccuracies on the basis of the further information you provide.

Transfer in certain circumstances
If there is a sale, merger, consolidation, change in control, transfer of substantial assets, reorganisation or liquidation of us, then we may transfer, sell or assign personal information (other than Health Information) collected to one or more relevant third parties. Subject always to your consent, we may also transfer any Health Information we hold about you to your counsellor in the event your counsellor leaves our practice.

Changes to this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy forms part of the agreement between you and us (either in your capacity as a client or a third-party service provider). We may, from time to time, amend this Privacy Policy, in whole or part, at our sole discretion. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy on https://liveyourstory.com.au Depending on the nature of the change, we may announce the change on the https://liveyourstory.com.au home page or by email (if we have your email address). However, in any event, by continuing to use the Website and/or our service following any changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time, in whole or part, you must terminate your use of the Website and inform us immediately prior to any further receipt of our counselling services.

Contact us:
If you have any questions about our Policies, or if you wish to request access to your personal information, correct or update your details, or raise any privacy concerns you may have, please contact us at admin@liveyourstory.com.au

For further information on your privacy rights go to: www.privacy.gov.au. For further information on the Health Records Act, go to: https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/about/legislation/health-records-act; http://www.health.vic.gov.au/hsc/downloads/hppextract.pdf

Effective Date
We review our policy every 6 months. The effective date of this latest policy was on the 27th of January 2022 until further notice. 

Counselling session

The standard duration for a counselling or client engagement session is 50 minutes + 10 minutes of admin (e.g. writing case notes, letters, book appointment, processing payment etc.). Although some sessions may be longer, there will be no extra charge at the client’s expense.

Late cancellation or no show

Your appointment time is reserved specifically for you. Once your appointment is confirmed if,  under any circumstances, you decide to cancel your appointment, please notifies us at least 24 hours in advance.
When you reschedule/cancel late, or do not attend your appointment, that appointment time slot may not be filled. This is a loss to the clinician who reserved time for you, and other clients who are on a waiting list.

If less than 24 hours notice is provided, a late cancellation/no show fee of AUD$100 will be charged. This is to ensure fairness to all parties including you as the client, the therapist, and those who may need a counselling session but they have to be on a waiting list due to limited availability. This cancellation fee can only be waived if you have a compassionate and compelling reason such as hospital emergency or under life-threatening circumstances.  

Professional service fees

As a client, you are expected to pay an additional fee (case to case basis) If you require extra professional services such as attendance at meetings with other professionals you have authorised, preparation of letters, records and/or treatment summaries and the time spent performing any other service you may request of your therapist. If you become involved in legal proceedings that require your therapist’s participation, you will also be expected to pay for his/her professional time even if he/she is called to testify by another party. Due to the difficulty of legal involvement, we will charge AUD$180 per hour for preparation and attendance at any legal proceeding or mediation session(s).

Insurance reimbursement and/or rebates

In order for us to set realistic treatment goals and priorities, it is important to evaluate what resources you have available to pay for your treatment. If you have a private health insurance policy, it will usually provide some coverage for mental health treatment. We will provide you with whatever assistance we can in helping you receive the benefits to which you are entitled; however, you (not your insurance company) are responsible for full payment of your consultation fees. It is very important that you find out exactly what mental health services your insurance policy covers and what the reimbursement procedure entails.

Professional records or case notes

The law requires your therapist to keep treatment records. You are entitled to receive a copy of your records, or the therapist can prepare a summary for you This will incur an additional service fee. Because these are professional records, they can be misinterpreted by untrained readers. If you wish to see your records, we recommend that you review them in the presence of your therapist so that he/she can discuss the contents together with you. Patients will be charged an appropriate fee for any professional time spent in responding to information requests

Termination

If at any time during the course of your treatment your therapist determines that he/she cannot continue, he/she will terminate treatment and explain why this is necessary. Ideally, therapy ends when the treatment goals have been achieved. Additional conditions of termination include that; you have the right to stop treatment at any time. If you make this choice, a referral to another therapist will be provided and you will be asked to attend a final ‘termination’ session.

Other legal or ethical circumstances may arise and compel your therapist to terminate treatment. In these cases, appropriate referral(s) will be offered. Also, your therapist does not diagnose, treat, or advise on problems outside the recognized boundaries of his/her competencies. Other situations that warrant termination include: regularly becoming enraged or threatening during the session; bringing a weapon onto the premises; persistent drug abuse; arriving under the influence of drugs or alcohol; disclosing illegal intentions or actions.

Payment

Full payment is expected at the end of each session. Medicare rebates will be processed by us on behalf of the client after the full payment has been made.

Disclaimer

The Live Your Story Counselling and Psychotherapy website is not intended as a replacement for psychological assessment and treatment. Live Your Story shall have no liability for claims by or damages of any kind whatsoever to users of this website. Furthermore this website is not an emergency services resource. If you are in need of immediate assistance, please dial 000 for emergency services or call Lifeline on 13 11 14. 

Although we endeavour to respond within one business day to the calls, emails and booking forms, we cannot guarantee this timeframe and take no responsibility for the safety or wellbeing of potential clients. 

This website includes links to other websites, resources and information. The content of these websites is not produced or monitored by Live Your Story and therefore no responsibility is taken for content accessed outside of this website. Your use of this website constitutes your agreement to the above disclaimer.

Effective Date

We review our policy every 6 months. The effective date of this latest policy was on the 27th of January 2022 until further notice.