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Immediate help for back patients: eCovery receives approval as an "app on prescription" for individualised training therapy
Leipzig, 07 January 2025: It has been one of the most popular therapy apps for the back for years, and the "eCovery Therapy App" for the lower back can now also be prescribed directly by a doctor on prescription: The 12-week digital therapy was approved by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) at the start of the year and is now listed in the official directory. Numerous doctors and health insurance companies had actively contributed to the development of the app in previous years - in future, it will now be reimbursed by all statutory health insurance companies as a "digital health application" (DiGA).
06/01/2025
Back pain is widespread throughout Europe, with well over half of Germans having to deal with it every year*. There are many reasons for this and the treatment options are limited. The new year is now starting with good news for all people covered by statutory health insurance: the „eCovery therapy app for lower back pain“ has been included in the directory of digital health applications (PZN 19746707) and can be prescribed by all doctors in Germany. „This means that we can offer patients with lower back pain effective therapy anywhere and at any time“ explains Dr Alexander Georgi, orthopaedist and co-founder of eCovery. The therapy app offers an individual, 12-week training programme with video exercises for use at home: it adapts to each user's state of health, documents progress and keeps a diary of pain progress. The app is aimed specifically at people with problems with the lumbar spine and is approved for people aged 18 and over; the costs are covered directly by health insurance.
With the introduction of the „DiGA“, the Federal Republic of Germany has created a form of therapy that is unique in this form in Europe. The digital therapies offer structured programmes with exercises, instructions or interactive functions that help patients to actively improve their health. However, the hurdles to be listed as a DiGA are high: the eCovery therapy app is not only a medical device and fulfils the highest safety standards, but also has connectivity to the various interfaces of the German healthcare system, such as the electronic patient record (ePA) and many others. eCovery GmbH also has ISO certification for its own quality management system (ISO 13485) and an ISO certificate for its in-house information security management system (ISO 27001). This ensures that patient and data security is always taken seriously. In addition, eCovery was able to prove in a study on the therapy app that both the patients' functional and pain scores improved compared to conventional therapy - and that it was therefore superior to conventional therapy.
If a user now wants to use the eCovery Rücken-DiGA, there are several options. Firstly, they can ask their trusted doctor for a prescription. It does not matter whether it is a specialist or a general practitioner: The so-called „Pharmazentralnummer“ (PZN) is helpful for quicker identification, especially for new products. The doctor can find eCovery as a remedy under the PZN 19746707 and then creates the prescription. In addition to on-site consultations, the provider „Teleclinic“ also offers a fully digital route to eCovery-DiGA: after completing a short online questionnaire, users can speak to a doctor online, describe their symptoms and, if suitable, receive digital therapy by means of a short test. In both cases, users still have to submit the prescription to their health insurance provider - either directly or via eCovery's prescription service, which simplifies the process even further. There is also a third option: the health insurance company itself can inform its policyholders about the possibility of DiGAs, provide them directly with an access code and supply them with an innovative solution.
Because health insurance companies are adding another option to their catalogue of services with the apps on prescription and at the same time ensuring that the new offers fit perfectly into the overall picture of patient care. This is another reason why eCovery has actively developed, tested and improved its digital applications together with health insurance companies in recent years. The result – the current version 4.1 of the eCovery therapy app – is therefore also a success for the contributing health insurance companies. „We have worked hand in hand with all partners in the healthcare sector since our company was founded,“ explains founder and managing director Marcus Rehwald. The Leipzig University Medical Centre, various AOKs and BKKs, substitute health insurers and private health insurers have all incorporated their feedback into our app. And we now all benefit equally from the result, because eCovery relieves the burden on our healthcare system and increases patients' self-efficacy.
The new eCovery therapy app for lower back pain is available for Android and iOS and is a Class I medical device (MDR). It covers 17 different ICD-10 codes for the lower back (M42.16, M42.17, M42.96, M42.97, M54.06, M54.07, M54.16, M54.17, M54.3, M54.4, M54.5, M54.86, M54.87, M54.96, M54.97, M99.03, M99.83 and M99.93) and provides a 12-week training programme with video instructions, guided training and a knowledge area. The app documents functional and pain development and adapts to the patient's individual training status. It can be found in the therapeutic products catalogue under the PZN 19746707.
* = Forsa survey October 2024, commissioned by the AOK Bundesverband, link.
&p>About eCovery:
Leipzig-based eCovery GmbH develops digital health services for the prevention and treatment of musculoskeletal diseases and injuries. As a "physiotherapist in your pocket”, the company provides all patients with safe and medically sound therapy exercises at home and accompanies them at all times and everywhere during their recovery and prevention. The services offered by eCovery are therefore the ideal complement to traditional treatment by a physiotherapist on site or are also available as a purely digital treatment solution.
Since 2025, the „eCovery therapy app for pain in the lower back“ has been listed as a digital health application (DiGA) in the directory of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and covers 17 different diagnoses. In total, the eCovery therapy app is available for over 300 ICD10 codes, and by the end of 2024, over 35,000 people had already worked with eCovery on their complaints.
In addition to Dr Alexander Georgi, the founding team of eCovery GmbH includes the two managing directors Benedict Rehbein and Marcus Rehwald, online expert Raphael Ibele and other experts in the fields of eHealth and digitalisation in the healthcare industry.
The above texts, or parts thereof, were automatically translated from the original language text using a translation system (DeepL API).
Despite careful machine processing, translation errors cannot be ruled out.