About Healthforce
Healthforce™
Patient Terms and Conditions
Healthforce is a software system used by hundreds of clinics around South Africa, including Dis-Chem, Medicare and Spar.
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You’ve probably reached this page because you visited one of these clinics. If you’d rather not read all the legal information, the important bits are:
  • The only people who can see your information on the Healthforce system are the nurses who work at the clinic group you visited, and the Healthforce doctors (if you saw a doctor).
  • Sometimes we have to send your information to funders (like Discovery). We only do this when the funder requires it to get a claim paid.
‍Read more about Healthforce, or watch a video to see how clinics use our system.

This document contains:
  1. 1. Definition of terms
    1. 1. 1. “Dependants” includes your children and any person on whose behalf you may legally act.
    2. 1. 2. “Funders” includes all entities or bodies that are legally responsible for the payment of accounts for medical services obtained by you including but not limited to medical schemes, medical scheme administrators, insurance companies, the Compensation Commissioner (for injuries on duty) and the Road Accident Fund.
    3. 1. 3. “Personal Information”, which includes “special personal information”, refers to information relating to identifiable, living, natural persons (including you and your dependants) as well as identifiable, existing juristic persons, and includes, but is not limited to –
      1. 1. 3. 1. information relating to the race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, national, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental health, well-being, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth of the person;
      2. 1. 3. 2. information relating to the education or the medical, financial, criminal or employment history of the person;
      3. 1. 3. 3. any identifying number, symbol, e-mail address, physical address, telephone number, location information, online identifier or other particular assignment to the person;
      4. 1. 3. 4. the biometric information of the person;
      5. 1. 3. 5. the personal opinions, views or preferences of the person;
      6. 1. 3. 6. correspondence sent by the person that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature or further correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence;
      7. 1. 3. 7. the views or opinions of another individual about the person; and
      8. 1. 3. 8. the name of the person if it appears with other personal information relating to the person or if the disclosure of the name itself would reveal information about the person.
    5. 1. 4. “Processing” means any operation or activity or any set of operations, whether or not by automatic means, concerning personal information, including –
      1. 1. 4. 1. the collection, receipt, recording, organisation, collation, storage, updating or modification, retrieval, alteration, consultation or use;
      2. 1. 4. 2. dissemination by means of transmission, distribution or making available in any other form; or
      3. 1. 4. 3. merging, linking, as well as restriction, degradation, erasure or destruction of information.
    7. 1. 5. “Medical services” means all or any medical services provided by the pharmacy, clinic and/or any health care practitioner.“
    8. 1. 6. We”, “us” or “our” refers to Healthforce (Pty) Ltd.“
    9. 1. 7. You” or “your” refers to you, as the user of any of our services, and includes your dependants. Whenever we refer to your information / personal information in this Policy, it includes the information / personal information of your dependants.
  1. 2. Who we are
    1. 2. 1. Healthforce (Pty) Ltd (“Healthforce”) is a technology provider registered as a private company in South Africa under registration number 2018/344681/07. We are responsible for the processing and storage of your personal information as set out in this consent and Privacy Policy. This policy also applies to other persons or entities that may process and store personal information on our behalf. Our contact details are as follows –
    2. 95 Yacht Street
      Honeydew
      Roodepoort
      2040
      E-mail: care@healthforce.io
      Website: www.healthforce.io
    3. 2. 2. Information Officer
      The contact details of our Information Officer are as follows:
      Name: Saul Kornik
      E-mail: care@healthforce.io
    4. 2. 3. For purposes of clarity, Healthforce provides a service to a clinic or pharmacy to provide you with a telemedicine consultation. The telemedicine consultation is provided to you as part of the clinic or pharmacy business. In addition, the nurse with which you consult is employed by the clinic or pharmacy providing the telemedicine service. Any doctor that you meet or consult with, as part of a telemedicine service, is not employed by the clinic or pharmacy but is part of a separate independent medical practice, by the name of Dr A Kornik Inc. Should you have any questions about the persons participating in this service or your healthcare treatment, you should ask the nurse attending to you and your questions will be explained and answered, alternatively, you may visit www.healthforce.io/our-doctors
  1. 3. Consent to be treated by a professional nurse
    1. 3. 1. You agree to a consultation and treatment by a professional nurse, at a clinic or in a pharmacy that you have chosen to attend or at your place of residence. The clinic’s or pharmacy’s and nurse’s names will be recorded on your Healthforce profile, which contains your personal information, every time you attend.
    2. 3. 2. You will receive information about the medical treatment and telemedicine services – referred to as Videomed; your health status; the nature of and reason for the recommended medical services; the range of treatment options and diagnostic procedures available; the benefits, risks, costs and consequences generally associated with each option; and your right to refuse the recommended medical services, as well as the implications, risks and obligations of such a refusal every time you consult the nurse or agree to participate in a telemedicine consultation.
    3. 3. 3. The clinic or pharmacy takes steps to ensure that the waiting room and other areas of the clinic or pharmacy are safeguarded. However, you are solely responsible for any personal belongings that you bring to the clinic or pharmacy and neither the clinic nor the pharmacy has any responsibility or liability for any loss of or damage to your belongings of whatsoever nature.
  1. 4. Consent for a Videomed telemedicine consultation
    1. 4. 1. The nurse may recommend that you should receive advice and treatment from the doctor on call by video link (telemedicine). Telemedicine is the use of electronic communication technology between the nurse in one location, and the doctor in another location, for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment.
    2. 4. 2. Before every Videomed consultation, you will be given the opportunity to ask questions relating to the scope and nature of a telemedicine consultation, including the benefits and alternatives to a telemedicine consultation. You will not continue with the consultation unless you have received satisfactory answers to your questions and you consent to the telemedicine consultation.
    3. 4. 3. All Videomed doctors are vetted by Healthforce, and registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. The practice providing the service is Dr A Kornik Inc, registration number BHF: 1405004, and all Videomed doctors belong to this practice. The nature of the service means you cannot choose a specific doctor and you agree to the telemedicine consultation occurring on this basis.
    4. 4. 4. You agree to the electronic transmission of information for purposes of the telemedicine consultation including, but not limited to, the electronic transmission of prescriptions.
  1. 5. LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY AND WAIVER OF LIABILITY
    1. 5. 1. YOU WAIVE ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, PENALTIES, LOSSES, DAMAGES AND/OR LIABILITY OF WHATEVER NATURE AND IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW IT WAS INCURRED, WHICH YOU MAY HAVE OR ASSERT AGAINST HEALTHFORCE, THE CLINIC, THE NURSE, THE PHARMACY OR THE DOCTOR AND ANY PERSON ACTING ON BEHALF OF ANY ONE OF THEM, WHETHER JOINTLY OR SEVERALLY, FOR ANY LOSSES, LIABILITIES, DAMAGES, COSTS AND/OR EXPENSES OF WHATSOEVER NATURE (COLLECTIVELY, “LOSSES”) WHICH YOU MAY SUFFER AND/OR OTHERWISE INCUR IN ANY CAPACITY ARISING OUT OF, OR IN RELATION TO THE USE OF VIDEOMED OR THE DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.
    2. 5. 2. YOU INDEMNIFY AND HOLD THE NURSE AND DOCTOR, ALL PERSONS ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR PRACTICES, THE CLINIC, PHARMACY AND/OR PERSONS ACTING ON THEIR BEHALF, INCLUDING HEALTHFORCE, AND ALL PERSONS ASSOCIATED WITH IT, HARMLESS AGAINST ANY CLAIM, PENALTY, LOSS, DAMAGES AND/OR LIABILITY OF WHATEVER NATURE AND IRRESPECTIVE OF HOW IT WAS INCURRED, EXCLUDING AS A RESULT OF THEIR GROSS NEGLIGENCE, FOR ANY INJURY OR HARM CAUSED TO OR DISEASE CONTRACTED BY YOU, RESULTING FROM THE TREATMENT OR THE USE OF VIDEOMED, INCLUDING IN RESPECT OF THE PROCESSING AND DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.
  1. 6. Payment Obligations
    1. 6. 1. You acknowledge that you will be liable for the cost of the consultation with the nurse, the telemedicine consultation (if applicable), medicines and any other products prescribed to or obtained by you.
    2. 6. 2. You agree that accounts in respect of services, medicines and products obtained, which includes your personal information such as your diagnosis, may be provided to the person responsible for payment and your medical scheme.
    3. 6. 3. The account may not be paid or paid in full by your medical scheme, depending on the benefits provided by the scheme. In this instance, you shall be fully liable for the costs of the services, medicines and other products obtained by you as well as any bank charges and costs of collection in respect of any dishonoured or outstanding payment.
  1. 7. Privacy Policy
    1. You agree to the processing of your personal information as set out in this Privacy Policy.
  1. 8. Our Commitment
    1. 8. 1. We understand that your personal information is important to you and that you may be anxious about disclosing it. Your privacy and the security of your information are just as important to us and we therefore want to ensure that you understand how we will process your information. We acknowledge that we are bound by applicable law to keep your personal information confidential and to protect such information. We will take every reasonable step to conduct our business in accordance with the relevant legal requirements in order to ensure that the confidentiality of your personal information is protected and maintained.
    2. 8. 2. We take this commitment to look after your personal information seriously. We have implemented several processes to make sure that your personal information is used in the right way. This Privacy Policy stipulates amongst others how we go about collecting your personal information, the type of information we collect, why we collect that information, the circumstances under which that information will be shared with others, the security measures that we have implemented to protect your personal information and your right to obtain access to and correct the information we have about you.
  1. 9. When You Give us Information about Someone Else
    1. You must make sure that if you give us personal information about someone else, you have their consent and they are comfortable for you to share their personal information with us. You should make sure that they read this Privacy Policy and understand how we will use and disclose their information. When you give us information about someone else, we will assume you have their consent. Therefore, should you consent on behalf of your dependants, you guarantee that you have the necessary authorisation to do so to the extent required in terms of the law. However, we may still ask them to confirm that they have consented. Persons of age 12 and older are generally competent to provide independent consent pertaining to their information, but this may change in the specific circumstances of the person concerned.
  1. 10. Electronic Medical Records
    1. In addition to providing the technology for telemedicine consultations, we also host the electronic medical records created by the medical practitioners with which you consult, if you obtain medical services from them.
  1. 11. Collection of Your Personal Information
    1. 11. 1. We obtain personal information directly from you when you supply it on our website or when you obtain medical services from one of the pharmacies or clinics offering Healthforce’s Videomed service. We may also collect, send and receive information about you, if it is lawful and reasonable to do so, from –
    2. 11. 2. other authorised persons such as other family members;
    3. 11. 3. referring clinics, pharmacies and doctors;
    4. 11. 4. funders such as your medical scheme and its administrators and managed healthcare providers; and
    5. 11. 5. other entities or persons from whom we may lawfully collect information.
  1. 12. Processing of Your Personal Information
    1. 12. 1. There are various laws that permit us in our own right or on behalf of the health care practitioners that render medical services to process your personal information such as the National Health Act (Act 61 of 2003), the Medical Schemes Act (Act 131 of 1998), the Pharmacy Act (Act 53 of 1974) and the Health Professions Act (Act 56 of 1974). We will only process, which includes to collect, use, disclose or store, your personal information in accordance with the law or otherwise with your consent and will always strive to keep your information confidential, whether you supply it to us directly or whether we collect it lawfully from other sources.
    2. 12. 2. We may process the following personal information about you and retain it as part of our records –
    3. 12. 2. 1. name, identity number, date of birth, customer number, passport number, address, age, race, birth, language and religious beliefs;
    4. 12. 2. 2. employment details;
    5. 12. 2. 3. details of the funders responsible for the payment of accounts;
    6. 12. 2. 4. billing details and payment history, including any payment defaults;
    7. 12. 2. 5. medical history, including the medical history of relevant family members;
    8. 12. 2. 6. health status, symptoms, diagnoses, prescribed or administered treatment and care as well as procedures performed by  relevant health care practitioners, prescribed medicines, findings and results from examinations performed by relevant health care practitioners (including, but not limited to, pathology laboratory results), blood type, prescribed or applied medical devices, responses to treatment, adverse reactions to medicines, relevant behaviour impacting on health status and treatment options, compliance with prescribed or recommended treatment, other relevant clinical and other information that may affect your clinical condition or treatment;
    9. 12. 2. 7. views and opinions of practitioners about your condition(s);
    10. 12. 2. 8. completed patient information forms, including terms and conditions and documents on which consent is provided;
    11. 12. 2. 9. motivations and reports provided to funders;
    12. 12. 2.1 0. sick certificates;
    13. 12. 2. 11. records of video consultations with medical practitioners (telemedicine);
    14. 12. 2. 12. records of our interactions or correspondence with you; and
    15. 12. 2. 13. utilisation of products and medical services of the pharmacy or clinic, if relevant and appropriate as well as utilisation of any of our services.
    16. 12. 3. Other personal information may be collected and processed, as may be necessary and applicable in the circumstances.
    17. 12. 4. You may also object to the processing of your personal information unless such processing is required by law. If you exercise this right or you withdraw your consent and, if the circumstances make it reasonable for us to do so, we may terminate our relationship with you and only continue to host your electronic medical records as permitted in terms of the law, which includes allowing health care practitioners, who have treated you, lawful access to such records.
  1. 13. Purpose of Processing Your Personal Information
    1. 13. 1. We use the personal and non-personal information collected from you for various purposes, which may include, amongst others
      1. 13. 1. 1. inclusion in your electronic medical records hosted by us;
      2. 13. 1. 2. to communicate information to you regarding your electronic medical records;
      3. 13. 1. 3. to compile and maintain the newsletter database;
      4. 13. 1. 4. the registration and/or authentication of users of our website;
      5. 13. 1. 5. to maintain information submitted by you in respect of competitions and promotions from time to time;
      6. 13. 1. 6. to compile non-personal statistical information about browsing habits, click patterns and access to our website(s);
      7. 13. 1. 7. to evaluate the use of our website(s), products and services;
      8. 13. 1. 8. to analyse the effectiveness of our advertisements, competitions and promotions;
      9. 13. 1. 9. to provide information to you and relevant funders on request, as authorised by you or permitted in terms of the law;
      10. 13. 1. 10. to provide health care practitioners who use our technology platform access to your electronic medical records with your consent;
      11. 13. 1. 11. to allow health care practitioners who have provided medical services to you to use the information for billing purposes;
      12. 13. 1. 12. for historical, statistical and research purposes, whilst protecting your confidentiality;
      13. 13. 1. 13. for auditing purposes;
      14. 12. 1. 14. to submit claims to medical schemes, health insurers and voucher providers for services provided to you;
      15. 13. 1. 15. for marketing and communication purposes. Personal information required for general marketing communications will only be shared publicly with your prior consent; and
      16. 13. 1. 16. other related lawful purposes.
    3. 13. 2. The clinic, clinic group, pharmacy or pharmacy group you visit may market to you by means of electronic communication, but will never do so without your specific consent.
  1. 14. Disclosure of Your Personal Information
    1. 14.1. In order to provide you with appropriate treatment and care, we will share your relevant personal information with –
      1. 14.1.1. health care practitioners who treat you with your consent;
      2. 14. 1. 2. relevant funders and voucher providers, if necessary (in particular, all clinical notes and referral letters relating to Discovery members are shared with Discovery (Pty) Ltd as a requirement for processing claims for these members);
      3. 14. 1. 3. other persons, including family members, only if we are permitted to communicate with them in terms of the law or otherwise with your consent;
      4. 14. 1. 4. our professional advisers;
      5. 14. 1. 5. any relevant third party in the course of an acquisition, sale, transfer, reorganisation or merger of parts of our business or our assets; and
      6. 14. 1. 6. our internal quality teams as part of our quality standards and oversight processes;
    3. 14. 2. We will not provide your information to any third party on any terms other than those set out in this Policy unless we have your consent or if it is permitted in terms of the law.
    4. 14 .3. The exact consequences of the above mentioned disclosures of your information are not known by us and information related to this disclosure must be obtained from the person to whom the information has been disclosed.
      1. 14. 3. 1. as required or permitted by law, where we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation or to protect the rights, property or safety of our business or others.
  1. 15. Record-Keeping
    1. 15. 1. We will only retain your personal information as long as it is necessary for the fulfilment of the purposes specified above.
    2. 15. 2. We shall retain your electronic medical records for as long as it is necessary for lawful purposes, including for historical, statistical and research purposes, subject to the provisions of the law, unless you agree that we may retain it for a longer period.
  1. 16. Sending Information Across the Borders of South Africa
    1. You acknowledge and agree that we will process and store your personal information in records sent and kept outside of the borders of the Republic of South Africa. We send your personal information outside of South Africa for security purposes. Your personal information is stored in the European Union, whose members effectively uphold rules and laws that provide adequate levels of protection for purposes of processing personal information.
  1. 17. Security of Your Personal Information
    1. We will take all reasonable measures to ensure the security of your personal information in order to protect it from unauthorised processing and access as well as loss, damage or unauthorised destruction. We continually review and update our information protection measures to ensure the security, integrity, and confidentiality of your information in accordance with industry best practices. The measures we adopt to ensure the security of your personal information include technical and organisational measures and internal policies to prevent unauthorised access, loss or use of personal information such as password control to access electronic records and off-site data back-ups. In addition, only those employees and health care practitioners who require access to your information to discharge their legal obligations will be permitted access and only if they have concluded agreements with us requiring them to implement appropriate security measures and to maintain the confidentiality of your information. We will inform you and the Information Regulator, when the law allows it and as required in terms of the law, if any person unlawfully obtains access to your personal information.
  1. 18. Right to Access your Personal Information
    1. You have the right to access your personal information subject to restrictions imposed in legislation. You may request access to information we hold about you and information of third parties to whom we have supplied that information. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact our Information Officer.
  1. 19. Accuracy of Your Personal Information
    1. 19. 1. It is important that we always have accurate information about you on record as it could impact on our communication with you and affect your treatment and care. You must therefore inform us as soon as any of your information changes.
    2. 19. 2. You may also request that we correct or delete any information. Such a request must be made in writing to the Information Officer and provide sufficient detail to identify the information and the correction or deletion required. We will only correct or delete information, if we agree that the information is incorrect or should be deleted.  If we correct any information and the corrected information will impact on any decision made or to be made about you, we will send the corrected information to persons who may lawfully access your information or to whom we have disclosed it in the past if they should be aware of the changed information.
  1. 20. Changes to this Policy
    1. We may revise or supplement this Privacy Policy in our sole discretion from time to time to reflect, for example, any changes in our business, the law and the introduction of any new technology. We will publish the updated Privacy Policy on our website at www.healthforce.io. It will also be available at our business premises. Any revised version of the Privacy Policy will be effective as of the date of posting on our website, so you should always refer back to the website for the latest version of the Policy. Your continued use of our services and hosting of your electronic medical records following the posting of a new version of the Privacy Policy on our website will constitute your acceptance of the terms of the new Privacy Policy. It is your responsibility to make sure that you are satisfied with any changes before continuing to use our products and services.
  1. 21. Which laws apply to this Privacy Policy?
    1. This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa and you agree by using our products and services to the jurisdiction of the South African courts in respect of any dispute which may arise out of or in connection with this Privacy Policy.
  1. 22. Concerns and complaints about the processing of your personal information
    1. All enquiries, requests or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or relating to the processing of your personal information should be addressed to our Information Officer. If you believe we process your personal information contrary to this Privacy Policy or in contravention of the law, please contact the Information Officer immediately. You may also lay a complaint with the Information Regulator once the Protection of Personal Information Act (Act 4 of 2013) has been implemented.