Commonwealth Consolidated Acts

HEALTH INSURANCE ACT 1973 - SECT 124Y

  (1)   Subject to this section, a person who acquires any information that became known solely as a result of a declared quality assurance activity, whether the person acquired the information in the course of engaging in that activity, as a result of a disclosure under section   124Z or in any other way, must not, except for the purposes of that activity or in accordance with an authority given by the Minister, directly or indirectly make a record of that information or disclose that information to another person or to a court.

Penalty:   Imprisonment for 2 years.

  (2)   Subject to this section, a person cannot be required:

  (a)   to produce to a court a document that was brought into existence solely for the purposes of a declared quality assurance activity; or

  (b)   to disclose to a court any information that became known solely as a result of such an activity;

except when it is necessary to produce the document or disclose the information for the purposes of this Part.

  (3)   Subsections   (1) and (2) do not apply to information that does not identify, either expressly or by implication, a particular individual or particular individuals.

  (4)   Subsection   (2) does not apply to a document that does not identify, either expressly or by implication, a particular individual or particular individuals.

  (5)   This section does not prohibit a disclosure of information if the person, or each of the persons, who would be directly or indirectly identified by the disclosure consents to that disclosure of the information.

  (6)   This section does not prohibit the disclosure of information to the Minister for the purpose of enabling the Minister to decide whether to authorise the disclosure of the information under section   124Z.

  (7)   If a quality assurance activity ceases to be a declared quality assurance activity, this section nevertheless continues to apply in respect of information that became known, or a document that was brought into existence, at a time when the activity was a declared quality assurance activity.