Summary
Amends the:
National Health Act 1953
and
Privacy Act 1988
to facilitate the continued operation of Medicare Australia’s Prescription Shopping Information Service which allows medical practitioners to access health information about their patients’ prescription status by permitting the collection of certain health information; and
Privacy Act 1988
to implement certain recommendations by the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Australian Health Ethics Committee by: amending the definitions of “health information” and “sensitive information” to include genetic information; and permitting the disclosure of genetic information to genetic relatives in certain circumstances.