Patient complaint responses and AI privacy: what a complaint letter gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

Replying to a patient complaint is hard to write: it has to be factual, kind and careful about what it admits. Practice managers often ask ChatGPT or Claude for a first draft, pasting in the complaint, the timeline and the internal findings. The letter that results names the patient, describes what went wrong with their care, says what the practice will change and tells the patient where to complain next. This page marks every item in a routine complaint response that the Privacy Act, Good medical practice and the NSW health records law bear on, and shows how the same letter is drafted on Ermos inside the practice.

The patient complaint response

Sent by the practice manager, usually with the doctor’s input, after a patient raises a concern. In NSW the Health Care Complaints Commission deals with complaints about health service providers if the patient wants to take it further.

An invented complaint response. Phone numbers are placeholders. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the practice

1. 1
   The patient’s name and address

   A named patient and a home address in a letter about his care. Personal information that is also health information, because the practice holds it as a health service provider. Privacy Act guide.

2. 2
   The complaint, in the patient’s terms

   What the patient said went wrong, including a spouse seeing a text. His account of a delayed result, and the family detail he gave to explain the harm. Patient data guide.

3. 3
   The timeline and named staff

   Dates, a clinician, an absence and a receptionist, setting out exactly how a result was missed. Sensitive to the patient, to the practice and to two named employees. Patient data guide.

4. 4
   The patient’s care and the referral

   That he saw a doctor and was referred urgently to a named specialist, and that the doctor discussed the consequence of the delay. Health information. Patient data guide.

5. 5
   The changes the practice has made

   Internal process fixes after an incident, ending with this patient’s contact preference. They describe a weakness and the response to it, and the practice may want to control who reads that.

6. 6
   The notice to the medical defence organisation

   That the practice has told its defence organisation about the complaint. Sensitive to the practice, and a matter for the doctor and the organisation to decide how to describe.

7. 7
   Where to complain next

   The HCCC deals with complaints about health service providers in NSW. Public information with no patient detail in it.

8. 8
   A fee waiver and a meeting

   An offer made to this patient. A commercial gesture, and sensitive to the practice if it were to travel.

9. 9
   The author and contact details

   Names the practice manager and a direct line. Ties the letter to its source.

What happens in Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)

• The whole document is transmitted to the provider’s servers. On personal plans the user cannot choose where it is stored or processed, and for the major providers that has generally meant outside Australia, under that country’s legal process. Some business plans offer storage in Australia, but the provider still receives the content.
• On consumer tiers, prompts can be retained and used to train future models.
• The provider’s staff and systems can reach the content under the provider’s own policies.
• Once sent, the practice no longer controls it. Retention and deletion happen on the provider’s terms.

The same document on Ermos

Part of AI data leakage in healthcare practices.

Common questions