“The prescription of quality-assured digital health applications should be made possible in cooperation with the social security system and supplement telemedical care,” says the DAA in sub-item 7.4. In general, the federal government is concerned with accelerating the digitization of the healthcare system – among other things, in order to promote the effects on rehabilitation and prevention. And then there should finally be apps on prescription.
The principle is already known from countries like France, Belgium and Germany. In Germany, the Digital Supply Act (DVG) At the end of 2019, the prerequisite was created for doctors to be able to prescribe apps. These are digital medical products with low risk classes, “which can support the insured in the treatment of illnesses or the compensation of impairments”. Most of them are smartphone apps from the fields of diabetology, cardiology, speech therapy, psychotherapy or physiotherapy.
chance or trap
In Germany there are currently 53 digital health applications (DiGAs) that can be prescribed internally by doctors or psychotherapists. The good thing for the patients is that the costs are then covered by the statutory health insurance companies. This has opened up new business models for startups and scale-ups such as HiDoc Technologies (“Cara Care”), Elona Health and Kaia Health, who have already had their apps listed. In order to be included in the official directory, the app providers must meet the criteria for inclusion in the DiGA directory and pass a strict examination by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM).
However, the DiGAs are not a guarantee of success. With Aidhere (provider of the “Zanadio” weight loss app), the third provider of a DiGA in Germany has recently gone bankrupt. The high costs for the app on prescription were cited. To date, German health insurance companies have not become big fans of “apps on prescription”. There are problems with the long time windows for verifying whether the apps are effective at all, and with high costs for the health insurance companies per app regulation. Approval hurdles are relatively low and pricing is little regulated, criticized Techniker Krankenkasse in the 2022 DiGA report.
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