If you are a doctor or manage a medical practice in Australia, chances are that you are laser focused on delivering exceptional care to your patients. But there may be a digital time bomb ticking right under your nose when you are looking at your medical practice website.

While your website can build patient trust, communicate your services, and even process sensitive data, it may also be exposing your medical practice to significant legal, reputational and financial risk. The danger lurking on your website often comes down to missing or outdated website terms of use, privacy policies, and emerging gaps around AI usage.

In this article, we unpack why these documents are essential to your Australian medical practice, what can go wrong if they’re not regularly reviewed and updated, and how You Legal can help you defuse the bomb before it explodes.

1. Outdated (or missing) website privacy policies

Medical practices collect some of the most sensitive information about individuals, their personal health information.

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) govern how an organisation must collect, store, use and disclose personal information and “sensitive information”, which includes medical and health details.

Unfortunately, many practices rely on a “set-and-forget” mentality when it comes to a privacy policy for their medical practice. That means the privacy policy on your website or tucked away in your administrative files may not reflect current technologies, third-party integrations (like booking software), or newer services like telehealth or AI-driven tools such as Heidi Health.

2. No website terms of use

Website terms of use are like a digital handshake. Every visitor who visits your medical practice website is greeted by them. Website terms of use outline what users can expect from your site and what’s expected of them.

Without clear website terms of use, your medical practice:

risks patients or third parties misusing your site;
could be liable for misinformation or outdated content;
puts intellectual property such as your logo, blog posts or educational content, at risk; and
has no enforceable way to limit liability through disclaimers on articles, blog content, or links to third party websites like Medicare, with such links becoming outdated over time.

3. Use of AI in your medical practice

With the rise of AI-powered chatbots, triage tools, and analytics platforms, medical practices are embracing cutting edge tools to enhance efficiency and patient engagement. But with innovation comes risk.

If you use AI on your website or in your medical practice, even indirectly via a social media scheduler, analytics tool or chatbot, then your medical practice needs a clear and transparent AI use policy.

Patients must know when they’re interacting with AI rather than a human, and what personal data is being collected, processed and stored and by whom and where.

4. What could go wrong?

Let’s put the theory into practice with three real world scenarios that show just how easily things can go off track, even when you think your medical practice has got it covered.

Scenario 1: privacy policy left to gather dust

Medical Practice A had a privacy policy. But it was put up on their website over a decade ago and hadn’t been touched since.

In the meantime, not only has the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) changed, but the practice also added a third party online form provider based in Europe to its website. As a result, patient data submitted through the form is stored offshore in the European Union (EU).

Because the data is now hosted in the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also applies, requiring Practice A to ensure transparency, obtain specific consent, respond to subject access requests and potentially appoint a data representative in the EU.

Under the Australian Privacy Principles, Practice A must also take reasonable steps to ensure that overseas recipients don’t breach Australian Privacy Standards.

The outcome? Practice A must urgently review and update its privacy policy to ensure compliance with both Australian and international privacy laws.

Scenario 2: no website terms of use

Practice B kept their privacy policy up to date but didn’t think website terms of use were necessary.

Several of the Doctors working in Practice B regularly published articles on the website operated by Practice B. Those articles go back a number of years and some of the older articles refer to out of date information.

A website scraper took one of the articles from the Practice B website and republished it on another site.

When Practice B contacted the site that had republished the article, the practice ran into trouble. With no website terms of use to point to, Practice B did not have a clear legal foundation to assert their rights or enforce takedown of the article.

Had Practice B’s website contained website terms of use restricting unauthorised access or the re-use of contents and clearly stating intellectual property rights, Practice B would have had a stronger footing to act quickly and effectively.

Further, without website disclaimers to limit the liability of the medical practice, Practice B was exposed to confusion, reputational harm and possible legal action.

Scenario 3: chatbot confusion

Practice C was ahead of the curve. It had a comprehensive privacy policy and website terms of use and even installed a chatbot on its website to offer triage style responses to new patient enquiries.

The problem? The chatbot was so lifelike that a patient mistook it for a real doctor, followed its advice and suffered harm as a result.

Because Practice C failed to disclose the use of AI on its website through an AI use policy and disclaimers on its website, it not only breached its transparency obligations under the Privacy Act but also potentially misled patients.

If your medical practice uses AI in any capacity, you must be clear about its use to protect your practice.

The legal foundations every medical practice website needs

Every Australian medical practice website should have the following legal documents, tailored to your specific practice and technology stack:

a customised privacy policy to:
- set out the type of data that is collected;
- why and how that data is used;
- where it is stored;
- covering how AI is used; and
- how users of your website and patients of your medical practice can request access or correct data;
a comprehensive website terms of use which:
- contains disclaimers around reliance on any educational medical content or information you publish;
- protects your intellectual property rights such as your logo and content;
- contains guidelines for acceptable use; and
- limits the liability of your medical practice.
an AI use policy to:
- disclose how your medical practice uses AI;
- limitations on the use of AI in your medical practice; and
- a notice that a patient can ask for details of how your medical practice uses AI.

Is your medical practice website a ticking time bomb?

At You Legal, we work closely with Doctors and medical practices across Australia to make sure their websites are legally compliant, reputationally secure and patient safe. This includes preparing or updating your privacy policy, website terms of use and AI use policy, and helping you put systems in place for regular legal check-ups to nothing slips by you when you are running your busy medical practice.

Your website is the digital front door to your practice. If it is not legally sound, you are leaving that front door wide open for complaints, risk and business risk.

Need Expert Advice?

Our team has extensive experience in legal advice for medical practices, including preparing privacy policies, website terms of use and AI policies for medical practice websites. To discuss your needs, contact our team here, and we will put you in touch with the best professional for your needs.

Why your medical practice website could be a time bomb; and how to fix it