Privacy Policy

Who is 4Cyte Pathology

4Cyte Pathology Pty Ltd (ACN 619 244 852) is an Australian owned and operated private pathology provider which provides specialist diagnostic pathology services to or on behalf of patients.

We need to collect, use and disclose personal information to provide our services. In so doing, we are committed to complying with the Australian Privacy Principles prescribed by the Privacy Act 1988 and related State and Territory-based based legislation.

The personal information we collect

We need personal information to provide our services. We only collect the personal information we need to provide our services and to operate our business.

The types of personal information we may collect, store and use include, but are not limited to:

• Information about patients
  • Patient identity details, including full name, date of birth, sex and government identifiers
  • Patient contact details, including address, phone number and email address
  • Information related to obtaining payment for our services, including Medicare number, health fund name and number, DVA number and payment history
  • Clinical information relating to patient lifestyle and medical history, including medications, disease status, prior diagnostic tests and treatments, family medical history, occupation, ethnicity and sexual orientation
  • Requested pathology tests
  • Pathology diagnoses, images and other test results
• Information about requesters of pathology services
  • Requester name (normally the name of the requesting doctor)
  • Practice name or requesting entity
  • Address of practice or requesting entity
  • Contact details for requester (for example, phone number, fax number, after-hours number and email address
  • Provider number(s)
  • Medicare number or HPI-I number (collected and used for identity checking purposes only but not stored)
• Information about other persons
• Name, address, contact details, identity documents, resumes and vaccination status for persons applying for jobs at 4Cyte
• Name, address and contact details for persons engaging with 4Cyte for the purpose of engaging in business

How we collect and store personal information

Typically, 4Cyte receives personal information concerning patients from their referring healthcare providers via pathology service requests (sent to 4Cyte electronically by the health care provider or as recorded on a physical pathology request form).

Personal information may also be received on other documents submitted with pathology service requests by the patient’s referring healthcare providers.

In some instances, personal information may be provided by patients directly (for example, by telephone or via 4Cyte’s website) or provided by someone on behalf of a patient (for example, by a patient’s guardian, carer or relative).

The personal information we collect is typically linked to an individual record in our electronic information system. As required, we will also store personal information in paper form. New information is added to this record over time as 4Cyte provides further diagnostic services related to that individual.

Why we collect and what we do with personal information

1. Patient care

   The primary reason 4Cyte collects, uses and discloses patient personal information is to enable 4Cyte to perform diagnostic pathology services for patients and to provide diagnostic support to their healthcare providers.

   The personal information contained in pathology service requests, together with the information that is stored in a patient’s electronic record over time, is needed to allow 4Cyte to:

   • perform the required pathology tests
   • generate accurate pathology tests results
   • provide information that will assist the requesting healthcare practitioners with interpretation of the results, developing a diagnosis and to identify changes to the patient’s health over time.

   Where we use a third-party to perform the requested pathology services (for example, for testing modalities that we do not currently offer ourselves, such as specialist histopathology and genetics testing, or testing ordinarily performed by specialist reference laboratories), we will disclose patient personal information to the relevant operators. We only use reputable third parties based in Australia who are bound by Australian privacy law.

   We communicate with a patient’s healthcare providers in relation to the pathology services we provide, including by:

   • sharing the patient’s pathology results with the healthcare providers who are providing health care services to the patient
   • answering any questions a patient’s healthcare providers may have in relation to the patient’s test results
   • arranging for additional tests to be performed on a patient’s specimens if requested by a patient’s healthcare providers
2. Administrative and billing

   A patient’s personal information is used to maintain our required administrative systems and as necessary to obtain payment for our pathology services, whether from a third party (for example, Medicare, health insurance fund, employer, Department of Veterans’ Affairs or a clinical trials business) or from the patient personally.

   Patient information may also be disclosed to a third-party debt collection agency when we are otherwise unable to recover our fees.

3. Development, analytics and quality assurance

   4Cyte may also use a patient’s personal information (normally in the form of pathology service requests, test results, images and reports) in the following circumstances:

   • for training of our staff and quality assurance purposes
   • for developing, training, testing and improving our pathology testing and technological processes and systems (including artificial intelligence tools).
   • for purposes of training, testing and using internal or third-party technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to ingest patient personal information for the purpose of assisting 4Cyte in performing pathology services
   • to perform data analytics relevant to our business and the services we offer.

4. Communicating with patients

   4Cyte may use patient information to directly communicate with patients. Circumstances where we may directly communicate with a patient include to:

   • notify patients of test results or that test results have been sent to their healthcare provider (as appropriate in the circumstances)
   • remind patients that their healthcare provider has recommended that they obtain pathology services from us
   • provide patients with information about the pathology services we offer and where to obtain them
   • request feedback about our pathology services
   • arrange recollection of pathology specimens where necessary for some reason
   • obtaining consent for billing arrangements for tests that attract fees and obtaining payment for any such services

   We may also communicate with a patient’s guardian, carer or a relative in relation to pathology services we provide where the patient has requested us to do so and have provided us with their contact information or it is otherwise appropriate to do so.

5. Direct marketing

   We may use your personal information for marketing that is directly related to our services. We will comply with all relevant legislation when doing so (for example, the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Spam Act 2003 (Cth)). We may engage third parties to undertake marketing services but will not disclose your health information to them. As required by law, you will be given the opportunity to opt out of receiving direct marketing from us.

6. My Health Record

   We will upload a patient’s pathology results into the My Health Record system operated by the Commonwealth Department of Health unless the patient has indicated on their pathology request form that they do not wish this to occur or they have not set up a My Health Record.

7. Other disclosures

   We may release information from a patient’s medical record when they consent/request us to do so or where we are compelled or authorised to do so by law (for example, as required by notifiable disease legislation or in response to court orders/subpoenas or requests by law enforcement bodies).

   Where we are requested to provide a pathology service to a patient and disclose the results to a third party (such as a Court, government agency, life insurance or other insurer or an insurance agent, or the patient’s employer) we will take the patient’s presentation for the collection of the required specimens as their consent to the disclosure of the results to the designated third party.

   We will not release information from a patient’s medical record where there is no legal or clinical obligation or authorisation to do so without the patient’s consent (or the consent of their carer/guardian if appropriate).

8. Information concerning prospective employees and business contacts

   Personal information received from prospective employees becomes part of their employment file when they accept an offer of employment from 4Cyte. 4Cyte discards personal information relating to persons who do not become 4Cyte employees.

   Personal information relating to persons with whom 4Cyte does business is used and disclosed to the extent necessary to conduct our operations as a business.

Automated decision making

Some of our pathology tests are performed by automated scientific instruments. Software involved in the operation of these instruments may automatically make decisions concerning the patient’s test results based on the scientific findings of the instruments (for example, the software may determine which test results can safely be issued by the instrument and which ones may require further human review before the results are released). The software used is programmed to use reference ranges set by our pathologists and is regularly checked in accordance with our quality assurance processes. The personal information this software may access while making automated decisions includes name, date of birth, pregnancy status, sex at birth and current and previous pathology results.

Website

Our website uses cookies that allow us to gain anonymised statistics about you and your use of our website including your internet service provider, your IP address, domain name, browser type and the pages you visit. These cookies do not enable us to identify you. We are only able to identify your use of our website if you specifically provide identifying information to us by entering it into one of the relevant forms on the website.

Overseas disclosure

While 4Cyte will store patient personal information within Australia, we may enter arrangements with third parties outside of Australia to access or use patient personal information to provide services to us (such as data processing, maintenance and support for laboratory instruments or the performance of specialised tests). Where we do this, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the third parties do not breach a patient’s rights under Australian privacy legislation.

The countries in which third parties may access or use a patient’s personal information include, but are not limited to, the USA, United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada.

Why we need to collect a patient’s personal information

We need information about patients in order to be able to undertake the pathology services we are requested to perform on a patient’s behalf. We only collect information to the extent that is necessary to perform those services.

Given the nature of the services we provide, we are unable to provide patients with services on an anonymous basis.

Accessing and correcting your own personal information

Patients are entitled to access any information 4Cyte stores in their medical record.

Patients are also entitled to request that information we hold in our medical record be corrected. If we do not agree to correct a medical record in a way that a patient requests, we will notify the patient and give our reasons. Circumstances where we may decide not to comply with a request include where the request is to alter pathology results or where the request will make the patient’s medical record misleading and capable of adversely impacting the accuracy of future pathology results.

To protect a patient’s privacy, we will need to take reasonable steps to identify the patient before we give access to or allow correction of their medical record.

We may charge a fee for our costs of giving access to medical records and will need to recover that fee before access is given.

To request a copy of specific pathology results or your medical record, please complete and send a Request for Pathology Results/Patient File together with payment of the relevant fee to the address below. The information you request will then be sent to you in the manner requested in your form.

To request correction of your patient record, please send your request (including details of the correction you require and the reasons why the correction is necessary) to the address below. We will respond in writing to you confirming whether or not we have made the correction and provide our reasons (if applicable).

Requests should be sent to:

Privacy Officer
1 Lucknow Road
NORTH RYDE NSW 2113

Complaints or concerns about 4Cyte and privacy

If you would like to provide any feedback or to raise any complaints or concerns you may have in relation to our use of your information, you can contact us through any of the methods mentioned below:

Phone	13 4CYTE (13 42 98)
Email	support@4cyte.com.au
Website	www.4cyte.com.au/contact
Post	Privacy Officer 1 Lucknow Road North Ryde, NSW, 2113

If you would like to make a complaint, you will need to submit that complaint to us in writing by one of the methods above. We will endeavour to respond to your complaint within 30 days of receiving it. If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you may wish to contact the Office of Australian Information Commissioner who has the power to investigate your complaint and make a determination. You may also be able to take your complaint to the privacy commissioner in the State or Territory in which you reside.

The Office of Australian Information Commissioner may be contact as follows:

Phone	1300 363 992
Website	www.oaic.gov.au
Post	GPO Box 5288 SYDNEY NSW 2001

Privacy Policy last updated: 9 April 2025