Ecovery and AOK cooperate

The digital health start-up wants to work with the health insurer to develop a hybrid therapy offering for back, hip and knee pain.

Ecovery is launching a pilot project for hybrid therapy together with AOK Plus. The project tests the combination of physiotherapy and app-based training together with physiotherapists and patients.

Benedict Rehbein, Marcus Rehwald and Alexander Georgi founded Ecovery in 2019. The founders' therapy app is intended to be a "physiotherapist for your pocket." With the help of sensor-supported therapy exercises for home use, patients are supposed to get better faster. The app includes videos for home training and a pain diary, among other features.

"By dovetailing on-site therapy and the app, we want to help patients practice the exercises that are right for them outside of physiotherapy sessions," says Rainer Striebel, CEO of AOK Plus.

As part of the pilot project, the app will be made available to participating patients for six months. Parallel to the home training, patients will be treated by a physiotherapist. This involves coordination between treatment and exercises performed with the app. In the second stage of the test phase, the patients only use the app. "The project is exemplary for the cooperation between health insurance companies and start-ups," says Benedict Rehbein, CEO of Ecovery.