Information sharing agreement with External Clinical Advisors
AS Van Wey (Account suspended) made this Official Information request to Accident Compensation Corporation
This request has an unknown status. We're waiting for AS Van Wey (Account suspended) to read recent responses and update the status.
From: AS Van Wey (Account suspended)
Dear Accident Compensation Corporation,
This is a request for all information sharing agreements with External Clinical Advisors, HNZ (or each DHB if it is not with HNZ), Red Health, Shakespeare Specialist Centre, Leinster Chambers, and whichever other health agency or health organization, including self-employed business, whose employees provided ACC sought and obtained external clinical advisor reports for treatment injury claims in 2022.
Yours faithfully,
AS Van Wey
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora
Thank you for contacting ACC; this is an automatic reply to confirm we
have received your email.
We will try to respond your query as quickly as possible. However,
depending on the nature of your request you may not receive a response for
up to 20 working days. You can check the [1]Ombudsman OIA response
calculator to find when your request for official information will be due
In cases where ACC’s response provides information that is identified to
be of general public interest, the response may also be published on the
ACC’s website. If ACC publishes the response to your OIA request, all
personal information, including your name and contact details, will be
removed.
The information you have requested may involve documents which contains
the names of our staff. Please let us know whether you require these
names. We may need to consult our staff before deciding whether we can
release this information, and this may take a bit more time. If we do not
hear from you, we will assume that you do not require staff names.
Our [2]website provides up to date news and information about our work.
You can also follow us on [3]Facebook and [4]Twitter. Further information
about how to contact us is also available [5]here.
Ngâ mihi,
Government Engagement Team
Government Engagement, ACC
' 0800 101 996
* Box 242, Wellington 6011
[6]www.acc.co.nz
Disclaimer:
"This message and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged
information. If you believe you have received this email in error, please
advise us immediately by return email or telephone and then delete this
email together with all attachments. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are not authorised to use or copy this message or any
attachments or disclose the contents to any other person."
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From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
GOV 026139 Appendix 1.pdf
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GOV 026139 Response.pdf
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Kia ora
Please find attached our response to your official information request
dated 4 July 2023. If you have any questions about the response you can
contact us at this [1]address, for all other matters please use our
contact form at: [2]https://www.acc.co.nz/contact/ alternatively give us a
call on 0800 101 996.
If you are having trouble viewing the PDF, please ensure you have the
latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download this freeware please
click [3]here.
Ngâ mihi
Sara Freitag (she/her)
Acting Manager | OIA Services
' 027 973 7330
* PO Box 242, Wellington 6011
ACC cares about the environment – please don’t print this email unless it
is really necessary. Thank you.
show quoted sections
From: AS Van Wey (Account suspended)
Dear Government Services,
I am writing to request clarification. Do all external clinical advisors sign the contract titled "Contract for services between Accident Compensation Corporation and Supplier Name"? The website is here:
https://www.acc.co.nz/assets/contracts/h... (see sections 9 and 12).
Specifically, have the External Clinical Providers Claire McLintock, Bryan Dwyer, Stephen Gibbons, and Simon Young all signed the "Contract for services between Accident Compensation Corporation and Supplier Name"?
If not, please provide me with a copy of their contracts with ACC.
Yours sincerely,
AS Van Wey
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora
Thank you for contacting ACC; this is an automatic reply to confirm we
have received your email.
We will try to respond your query as quickly as possible. However,
depending on the nature of your request you may not receive a response for
up to 20 working days. You can check the [1]Ombudsman OIA response
calculator to find when your request for official information will be due
In cases where ACC’s response provides information that is identified to
be of general public interest, the response may also be published on the
ACC’s website. If ACC publishes the response to your OIA request, all
personal information, including your name and contact details, will be
removed.
The information you have requested may involve documents which contains
the names of our staff. Please let us know whether you require these
names. We may need to consult our staff before deciding whether we can
release this information, and this may take a bit more time. If we do not
hear from you, we will assume that you do not require staff names.
Our [2]website provides up to date news and information about our work.
You can also follow us on [3]Facebook and [4]Twitter. Further information
about how to contact us is also available [5]here.
Ngâ mihi,
Government Engagement Team
Government Engagement, ACC
' 0800 101 996
* Box 242, Wellington 6011
[6]www.acc.co.nz
Disclaimer:
"This message and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged
information. If you believe you have received this email in error, please
advise us immediately by return email or telephone and then delete this
email together with all attachments. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are not authorised to use or copy this message or any
attachments or disclose the contents to any other person."
References
Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/agenc...
2. http://www.acc.co.nz/
3. http://www.facebook.com/ACCNewZealand/
4. https://twitter.com/accnz
5. http://www.acc.co.nz/contact/
6. https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora,
The link in your request is for our standard terms and conditions that we
issue to health suppliers.
However, the contracts themselves vary according to what service we are
seeking from each external provider.
Each time we seek advice from an external clinical advisor for a
particular claim, they may sign a different contract. Therefore, we would
need to know which claim the advice was sought for from the below
providers, for us to find the relevant contracts which were signed.
Without this, we are unable to answer your questions.
Requests responded to under the OIA have a timeframe of 20 working days.
However, as we are asking for clarification of your request, if you choose
to reword your request, the 20 days will begin from the date we receive
your response to this clarification.
Please advise by 2 October 2023 if you would like to change the wording of
your request.
We can be contacted via email at [1][email address].
Ngā mihi
Sara Freitag (she/her)
Acting Manager | OIA Services
' 027 973 7330
* PO Box 242, Wellington 6011
ACC cares about the environment – please don’t print this email unless it
is really necessary. Thank you.
show quoted sections
From: AS Van Wey (Account suspended)
Dear Government Services,
Please provide the contracts for the following external clinical advisors.
Claire McLintock, claim #100 5422 1895.
Brian Dwyer, claim #10054221878.
Simon Young, claim #10054220709.
S Gibbons, claim#10054222732.
Yours sincerely,
AS Van Wey
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora
Thank you for contacting ACC; this is an automatic reply to confirm we
have received your email.
We will try to respond your query as quickly as possible. However,
depending on the nature of your request you may not receive a response for
up to 20 working days. You can check the [1]Ombudsman OIA response
calculator to find when your request for official information will be due
In cases where ACC’s response provides information that is identified to
be of general public interest, the response may also be published on the
ACC’s website. If ACC publishes the response to your OIA request, all
personal information, including your name and contact details, will be
removed.
The information you have requested may involve documents which contains
the names of our staff. Please let us know whether you require these
names. We may need to consult our staff before deciding whether we can
release this information, and this may take a bit more time. If we do not
hear from you, we will assume that you do not require staff names.
Our [2]website provides up to date news and information about our work.
You can also follow us on [3]Facebook and [4]Twitter. Further information
about how to contact us is also available [5]here.
Ngâ mihi,
Government Engagement Team
Government Engagement, ACC
' 0800 101 996
* Box 242, Wellington 6011
[6]www.acc.co.nz
Disclaimer:
"This message and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged
information. If you believe you have received this email in error, please
advise us immediately by return email or telephone and then delete this
email together with all attachments. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are not authorised to use or copy this message or any
attachments or disclose the contents to any other person."
References
Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/agenc...
2. http://www.acc.co.nz/
3. http://www.facebook.com/ACCNewZealand/
4. https://twitter.com/accnz
5. http://www.acc.co.nz/contact/
6. https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora Amy,
Thank you for your request below, received 30 September 2023.
Your request directly references specific ACC claims, and we consider that
it is more appropriate that you raise these directly with ACC via your own
personal email address. You can contact us directly at
[1][ACC request email].
If you can contact us by 6 October 2023, that would be appreciated.
Ngâ mihi
Sara Freitag (she/her)
Acting Manager | OIA Services
' 027 973 7330
* PO Box 242, Wellington 6011
ACC cares about the environment – please don’t print this email unless it
is really necessary. Thank you.
show quoted sections
From: AS Van Wey (Account suspended)
Dear Government Services,
Context 1: On 26 September 2023 you wrote: "Each time we seek advice from an external clinical advisor for a particular claim, they may sign a different contract. Therefore, we would need to know which claim the advice was sought for from the below providers, for us to find the relevant contracts which were signed. Without this, we are unable to answer your questions."
I then provided you the specific names of the ECA's and the claims associated with those ECAs.
Request 1: Please provide the information via this website, as I had requested, and as you had implied you would provide once you had the relevant information.
Context 2: Claire McLintock was an Obstetrician according to her publicly available information (including information on Medical Council of NZ website). Obstetrics is the branch of medicine and surgery concerned with childbirth and the care of women giving birth. Claire McLintock informed ACC and Shelley Steele (the SCA) that it was outside her scope of practice, but ACC still sought a report from her knowing the area was that of immunology not obstetrics.
Request 2: Please provide the scope of practice that those ECA's were contracted to provide services for.
Context 3: According to the reports I received form ACC, Brian Dwyer was retired. The publicly available information on the Medical Council of NZ website states that people who are retired are not permitted to practice medicine in NZ because they do not hold a current practicing certificate.
Request 3(a): Please provide the evidence that those physicians had a valid practicing certificate with the Medical Council of NZ at the time of their ECA reports.
Request 3(b): Please provide me with the number of instances for each physical year since 2013, where ACC sought and obtained ECA reports from physicians in areas outside their scope of practice, and /or from persons who were not permitted to practice medicine in NZ (e.g., did not hold a current practicing certificate). We know the number is at least two, as I've just named two instances in the last year.
Context 4: According to the letters ACC sent to these physicians, ACC wrongly claimed they had obtained my consent to disclose my health information to them and seek their advice. ACC never sought my consent, never notified me that they were seeking external advice, never informed me they obtained information from anyone other than me, until the date ACC notified me of their decision to revoke cover. Attached to that decision were the ECA reports.
Request 4: For each of the physical years since 2013, the number of times ACC sought ECA advice without first:
(1) notifying the claimant that they were seeking an ECA as required under ACC's policies, the Act, the Code, and the Privacy Act 2020; and
(2) providing the claimant with a list of options of ECA's, as required under ACC's policies, the Act, the Code and other legislation (See HDC Code of Consumer Rights Regulations 1996); and
(3) seeking the claimant's consent to disclose records, as required under ACC's policies, the Code, the Privacy Act, and the HDC Code of Consumer Rights; and
(4) without having first discussed with the claimant what information ACC had obtained, and from whom, and provided that information to the claimant, as required under ACC's policies, the Code, and the Privacy Act.
We know the number cannot be zero, because lodged 8 privacy complaints on 10 October 2022 alone, and followed up with additional complaints on the following days and months.
Context 5: ACC sought and obtained my health information from HNZ without informing me of what information they were seeking or from whom. This resulted in ACC obtaining a lot of health information unrelated to my claim. In some instances, the SCA (Shelley Steele) took information obtained for one claim, and copied it over to an unrelated claim. She never discussed with me what information she required, or how it would be used (legal obligation under the Privacy Act, IPP 3 and the Code). According to the emails to ACC from Claire McLintock, Simon Young, and Brian Dwyer, Ms Steele disclosed the irrelevant health information and withheld the relevant information. Claire McLintock told ACC she did not see how anyone could provide a report based on the information she was given. When she asked for a particular diagnostic report (and provided Ms Steele with a screen shot of the email with the report listed as an attachment), Ms Steele said she couldn't access it because Ms Steele was trying to click on the embedded image in the email from Claire McLintock, rather than search the Party file for the document. Furthermore, Ms Steele then sent Ms McLintock the report by Brian Dwyer which was unrelated to the claim in which ACC was seeking advice from Ms McLintock. Ms McLintock noted she was not provided diagnostic records.
Brian Dwyer reported he had not been provided diagnostic records.
Simon Young stated in an email that only 1 document out of > 70 documents was related to the claim. He asked for the rest of the claim information, including the diagnostic records I had provided to ACC twice. ACC withheld the diagnostic records, saying they did not exist.
ACC told FairWay in 2021, 2022 and 2023 that I had not provided consent to seek information, when in fact they were aware I had. There was internal communications between the Resolution Specialist and Ms Brouwers, who confirmed that the RS had found the relevant document. The consent documents were in the bundle of documents provided to the external counsel, Mr Evans, who still submitted to FairWay that the documents he held and supplied to FairWay did not exist.
Ms Gasston told FairWay in 2021 that they were investigating my claims, when in fact the SCA (Ms Baker) and her line manager (Ms Brouwers) didn't even know "where to begin" according to internal emails. In response to Ms Brouwer's request for help, Mary Ahern (ACC solicitor) advised ACC to decline claims when they had not investigated them, rather than issue a deemed decision of cover as required under the law (s 58).
ACC has disclosed my personal health records to their external legal council, FairWay and ICRA, without my informed consent. In most instances the medical records were not relevant to the issue. You don't need health records to determine whether ACC met the statutory timeframes. Then ACC withheld the relevant information, such as the tasks and communications information held in EOS which indicates what was done and by whom on a claim. This is relevant to establishing whether ACC met the timeframes.
All of these are complaints, however, I've only received 1 complaint number. This is clearly contrary to ACC's policies, so I can understand why you may have trouble finding accurate numbers when people request stats. Now you have the back ground. The Claims team is supposed to register a complaint and contact persons within 48 hrs of receiving the complaint. According to ACC policies, all privacy complaints must be handled by the Privacy Team. Thus, you should be able to ask the Claims and Privacy Teams for the number of complaints they have received, the number that have been allocated a complaint number, and the number of complaints which are back logged and have not been dealt with in accordance with the internal rules. I can tell you at least 20 of mine have not.
Request 5: For each of the financial years, since 2013, please provide me with the number of instances where ACC
(1) obtained information from third parties without first obtaining the informed consent of the claimant (specifying what information they were seeking and from whom),
(2) disclosed unrelated information to third parties (e.g., ECA's, ICRA, FairWay, external lawyers),
(3) made inaccurate or false statements to claimants about what information they held to the claimant, FairWay or others, and
(4) withheld the relevant information from medical assessors, claimants, ECA's, ICRA, and or FairWay; and
(5) sought information from the wrong persons.
Thanks for your help.
Yours sincerely,
AS Van Wey
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora
Thank you for contacting ACC; this is an automatic reply to confirm we
have received your email.
We will try to respond your query as quickly as possible. However,
depending on the nature of your request you may not receive a response for
up to 20 working days. You can check the [1]Ombudsman OIA response
calculator to find when your request for official information will be due
In cases where ACC’s response provides information that is identified to
be of general public interest, the response may also be published on the
ACC’s website. If ACC publishes the response to your OIA request, all
personal information, including your name and contact details, will be
removed.
The information you have requested may involve documents which contains
the names of our staff. Please let us know whether you require these
names. We may need to consult our staff before deciding whether we can
release this information, and this may take a bit more time. If we do not
hear from you, we will assume that you do not require staff names.
Our [2]website provides up to date news and information about our work.
You can also follow us on [3]Facebook and [4]Twitter. Further information
about how to contact us is also available [5]here.
Ngâ mihi,
Government Engagement Team
Government Engagement, ACC
' 0800 101 996
* Box 242, Wellington 6011
[6]www.acc.co.nz
Disclaimer:
"This message and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged
information. If you believe you have received this email in error, please
advise us immediately by return email or telephone and then delete this
email together with all attachments. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are not authorised to use or copy this message or any
attachments or disclose the contents to any other person."
References
Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/agenc...
2. http://www.acc.co.nz/
3. http://www.facebook.com/ACCNewZealand/
4. https://twitter.com/accnz
5. http://www.acc.co.nz/contact/
6. https://aus01.safelinks.protection.outlo...
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora,
Thank you for your below email on 9 October 2023.
Our responses to 'Request 1', 'Request 2', and 'Request 3(a)' is
attached.
Requests 3(b) to 5:
We hope to respond to Requests 3(b) to 5 as soon as possible. If we are
unable to respond to your request within 20 working days, we will notify
you of an extension. If you have any questions, we are happy to work with
you to resolve them.
In cases where ACC’s response provides information that is identified to
be of general public interest, the response may also be published on the
ACC’s website. If ACC publishes the response to your OIA request, all
personal information, including your name and contact details, will be
removed.
The information you have requested may involve documents which contains
the names of our staff. Please let us know whether you require these
names. We may need to consult our staff before deciding whether we can
release this information, and this may take a bit more time. If we do not
hear from you we will assume that you do not require staff names.
We can be contacted via email at [1][email address].
Ngā mihi
Sara Freitag (she/her)
Acting Manager | OIA Services
' 027 973 7330
* PO Box 242, Wellington 6011
ACC cares about the environment – please don’t print this email unless it
is really necessary. Thank you.
show quoted sections
From: Government Services
Accident Compensation Corporation
Kia ora
Please find attached our response to your official information request
dated 9 October 2023. If you have any questions about the response you can
contact us at this [1]address, for all other matters please use our
contact form at: [2]https://www.acc.co.nz/contact/ alternatively give us a
call on 0800 101 996.
If you are having trouble viewing the PDF, please ensure you have the
latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download this freeware please
click [3]here.
Ngâ mihi
Sara Freitag (she/her)
Acting Manager | OIA Services
' 027 973 7330
* PO Box 242, Wellington 6011
ACC cares about the environment – please don’t print this email unless it
is really necessary. Thank you.
Disclaimer:
"This message and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged
information. If you believe you have received this email in error, please
advise us immediately by return email or telephone and then delete this
email together with all attachments. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are not authorised to use or copy this message or any
attachments or disclose the contents to any other person."
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. https://www.acc.co.nz/contact/
3. https://get.adobe.com/nz/reader/
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