Last updated: 21st May 2026
Entity: Prickly Health Pty Ltd ("Prickly", "we", "us", or "our")
Jurisdiction: Victoria, Australia (Operating as a National Service)
1.1 This website, its digital portals, onboarding flows, user interfaces, and related digital infrastructure (collectively, the "Platform") are owned and operated by Prickly Health Pty Ltd.
1.2 By creating an account, interacting with our digital clinical pathways, submitting health information, or purchasing any service, you ("the Patient", "User", "you") enter into a legally binding agreement governed exclusively by these Terms & Conditions. If you do not accept these Terms in their entirety, you must immediately cease all access to the Platform.
1.3 No Immediate Duty of Care: You explicitly acknowledge that your initial access to the Platform, completion of any questionnaires, or submission of payment does not automatically create a practitioner-patient relationship or impose a clinical duty of care upon Prickly or its clinical contractors. A formal doctor/practitioner-patient relationship and clinical duty of care are only established if and when an Australian-registered Medical Practitioner or Nurse Practitioner formally reviews, validates, and accepts your case file within our Electronic Medical Record (EMR).
2.1 The Platform is strictly not suitable for medical emergencies, acute clinical conditions, or urgent interventions.
2.2 To mitigate the risk of delayed diagnosis in complex cases, Prickly operates strictly as a low-risk, asymptomatic screening service. Our clinical triage system executes immediate, automated hard-stop exclusions if red flag indicators are detected.
2.3 You must not use this Platform, and are legally directed to call 1800MEDICARE or present immediately to a physical hospital emergency department or public sexual health clinic, if you require:
3.1 To utilize the Service, you must be at least 16 years of age.
3.2 You acknowledge and consent to mandatory identity verification utilizing Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) validation. This measure satisfies necessary legal and regulatory frameworks governing mature minor consent and accurate digital health record integration.
3.3 Patient Representation and Location Restraints: You warrant that all information provided during registration, eligibility assessment, and anatomical mapping is entirely truthful, accurate, current, and your own. You explicitly declare that you are purchasing and utilizing this Service strictly for yourself, and you are prohibited from utilizing the Service on behalf of, or as a surrogate for, any third party. Furthermore, you must be physically located within Australia at the time of accessing the Platform, completing the questionnaires, and utilizing the specimen collection equipment. Falsifying clinical data, misrepresenting your identity, or executing a digital consultation on behalf of another individual constitutes fraudulent behavior and a material breach of this contract.
3.4 Zero Tolerance Policy for Abuse: We are committed to maintaining a safe, respectful environment for our workforce. We enforce a zero-tolerance policy for abusive, aggressive, threatening, profane, or offensive communication directed at our clinical or administrative staff. Prickly reserves the absolute, unilateral right to immediately terminate your interaction, suspend or permanently delete your account, and permanently withdraw your access to our services without notice and without financial liability or refund if this clause is breached.
4.1 Prickly is a digital-first, clinician-led service. One hundred percent (100%) of testing requests and incoming laboratory reports are manually reviewed, validated, and signed off by an Australian-registered Medical Practitioner or Nurse Practitioner.
4.2 We strictly reject the use of decentralized or fragmented internal databases. Prickly utilizes a secure cloud Electronic Medical Record (EMR) as its sole practice management architecture. All demographic data, clinical intake answers, pathology results, clinical notes, and financial transactions are securely consolidated within this environment. We maintain no database architectures external to the secure EMR.
5.1 The Two-Phase Hybrid Testing Protocol: You explicitly acknowledge and understand that the screening package dispatched to you utilizes two completely distinct testing methodologies which run concurrently:
5.2 Patient Compliance Obligations: You agree to strictly, thoroughly, and flawlessly adhere to the printed or digital instructions provided by Prickly, as well as the manufacturer's specific instructions for each individual medical device. Full risk and liability for misinterpreting a home-read rapid test, failing to act on device documentation, or contaminating a PCR sample due to a failure to follow operational protocols rest entirely with you.
5.3 Referral and Equipment Expiry (No Refunds):
5.4 Specimen Handling & Return: You must execute and sign the enclosed pathology request form and return all self-collected Phase 2 molecular specimens to our partner laboratory. You are solely responsible for ensuring the specimens are packed exactly as instructed within the return-paid packaging to satisfy federal "Exempt patient specimen" postal regulations. Prickly disclaims all liability for specimens that are lost, structurally compromised, or delayed in transit due to third-party postal or courier services.
6.1 To satisfy strict public health regulator guidelines regarding diagnostic tracking, Prickly operates an absolute closed-loop care pathway to prevent patients from being lost to follow-up.
6.2 Negative Results: If your laboratory PCR results return negative, you will be alerted via a manual, generic notification email. To maximize your privacy, this email will contain zero personal medical information or specific test findings. You retain the option to book a Telehealth follow-up consultation via the EMR to discuss these results.
6.3 Positive and Indeterminate Results: Any indeterminate or invalid laboratory PCR test result is processed with the identical clinical urgency and pathway as a confirmed positive result. If an action-required result occurs, you will receive a manual, generic notification email stating that an administrative or clinical update requires your attention. This email will contain no sensitive clinical data.
6.4 Mandatory Follow-Up & Delineated Treatment Pathways: Upon receiving an action-required notification, you are contractually and clinically mandated to book and attend a Telehealth follow-up consultation via our secure platform. You explicitly acknowledge and agree that treatment models differ significantly by infection type, imposing the following legal realities:
6.5 Chronological Escalation Welfare Safety Net: If a positive or indeterminate result is not successfully addressed via a Telehealth consultation within 14 calendar days of notification, Prickly's clinical team will initiate a strict, tiered escalation protocol to ensure public health compliance. This safety net will be deployed sequentially as follows:
7.1 Upfront Eligibility Check: To eliminate financial risk for ineligible patients, our peer-reviewed eligibility check occurs prior to the display of any payment gateway. Financial transactions are exclusively processed for individuals who have been provisionally cleared by the platform infrastructure to proceed.
7.2 Refined Refund and Rejection Policy: Once payment is successfully processed, refunds are strictly governed by the following operational parameters:
7.3 Insurance and Out-of-Pocket Pathology Liabilities: Initial digital triage reviews do not qualify for Medicare or OSHC/OVHC benefits to protect against sham consultation compliance risks; this fee is entirely private and non-rebatable. Follow-up Telehealth consultations and laboratory pathology processing may utilize Medicare bulk-billing or Private Health Insurance (OSHC/OVHC) arrangements where clinically and legally applicable. If you do not hold a valid Medicare card or an active domestic insurance policy, or if your international insurer rejects the claim, you are fully, privately liable for the entire cost of the laboratory pathology testing. Verifying coverage under reciprocal frameworks is your sole responsibility.
7.4 Australian Consumer Law (ACL): Nothing in these Terms purports to exclude or restrict consumer guarantees that cannot be lawfully bypassed under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). Where a non-excludable guarantee is breached, Prickly's liability is strictly limited to the resupply of the digital service or the dispatch of replacement specimen collection equipment.
8.1 Prickly does not issue financial refunds for physical logistics failures. If your package arrives structurally compromised, is visibly defective, or is officially declared lost in transit by Australia Post or our couriers, you may request a zero-cost replacement of the specimen collection equipment.
8.2 To initiate a logistics review and replacement request, you must immediately contact our operations desk via email at hello@prickly.health.
9.1 Explicit Non-Use of Artificial Intelligence: Prickly acknowledges that while advanced administrative and clinical AI features exist natively within the practice management software ecosystem, Prickly does not utilize artificial intelligence, automated machine learning, or algorithmic decision-making tools for any clinical, diagnostic, triaging, or administrative processes. One hundred percent (100%) of your documentation, triage screening reviews, and laboratory interpretations are executed purely by human medical and administration professionals.
9.2 Data Sovereignty and International Storage Disclosures (APP 8): In accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), we disclose the geographical architecture of your data:
9.3 My Health Record (MHR) Integration Disclaimer:
9.4 Downtime and Portal Interruptions: While we utilize enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure, Prickly does not guarantee uninterrupted availability of the Platform. Prickly is entirely indemnified against any losses, inconveniences, or clinical anxieties arising from temporary platform downtime, database maintenance, or network connection failures.
10.1 Explicit Consent to Email Contact: You explicitly authorize Prickly to communicate with you via your registered email address for administrative updates, scheduling reminders, and generic outcome notifications.
10.2 Secure Distribution Method: To prevent unauthorized interception of sensitive health records, Prickly will never transmit laboratory reports, medical scripts, or clinical referral letters directly inside an unencrypted email body or attachment. All critical documents are delivered via secure download links generated directly from the secure EMR.
10.3 Patient Monitoring Obligation: You bear a strict legal duty to actively monitor your nominated email inbox, including regular inspection of "Spam", "Junk", or automated filtration folders. Prickly accepts zero liability for delayed clinical outcomes or the escalation of a condition if a patient fails to read, open, or act upon an alert email.
11.1 To the maximum extent permitted by law, Prickly Health Pty Ltd, its directors, employees, and clinical contractors exclude all liability for any indirect, consequential, special, incidental, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Platform.
11.2 User Indemnity Clause: You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Prickly Health Pty Ltd, its directors, officers, employees, clinical contractors, and related corporate entities from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, fines, penalties, demands, and legal expenses (calculated on a full solicitor-client basis) arising directly or indirectly out of:
11.3 Clear Liability Boundaries:
12.1 All structural workflows, clinical questionnaire design logic, visual assets, brand identifiers, copy, text, and data mapping algorithms deployed across the Prickly Platform are the exclusive intellectual property of Prickly Health Pty Ltd.
12.2 Users are strictly prohibited from scraping, reverse-engineering, data-mining, or copying our anatomical risk-mapping structures or clinical intake questions for commercial purposes. Any such action will result in immediate termination of service and aggressive legal recourse under intellectual property laws.
13.1 Mandatory Direct Mediation: If a dispute, controversy, or claim arises out of or relates to these Terms, our clinical operations, or your use of the Service, you contractually agree to first attempt to resolve the matter in good faith by directly contacting our corporate management team at hello@prickly.health before commencing any formal legal, tribunal, or regulatory proceedings.
13.2 We will acknowledge formal complaints within seven (7) business days and aim to provide a comprehensive, substantive internal review and response within thirty (30) calendar days.
14.1 Consent to Ongoing Recall Communications: In strict accordance with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and best-practice preventative health tracking protocols, you grant explicit, ongoing consent for Prickly to issue automated clinical reminders to your registered contact channels.
14.2 The 3-Month Automated Screening Interval: This includes, but is not limited to, receiving an automated clinical recall notification approximately three (3) months post-interaction to prompt routine diagnostic re-screening based on standard sexual health surveillance guidelines. You may opt out of these purely preventative clinical recall notices at any time through your account interface, provided it does not interfere with the mandatory 14-day welfare escalation safety net established under Section 6.5.
15.1 Prickly Health Pty Ltd is legally registered in the State of Victoria, Australia. These Terms & Conditions are governed comprehensively by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of Victoria. Any legal disputes, mediation sessions, or litigation arising out of or in connection with these Terms shall be dealt with exclusively by the courts of Victoria.
15.2 If any specific provision of these Terms is deemed unlawful, void, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, that specific provision shall be severed from this contract without impacting the validity, legality, and enforceability of the remaining clauses.
© Prickly Health Pty Ltd · ABN 26 686 380 156