During his conscripted service with the German Navy, Christian Dierks learned that if you’re the person in charge of rules and administration, you can bring about a lot of change. He took this lesson with him to law school and in the creation of his own law and healthcare consultancy firm, Dierks+Company.

Christian was instrumental in the creation of Germany’s 2019 Digital Health Care Act (known as DVG in Germany), which mandates full reimbursement of any prescribed digital health application. In fact, Christian was involved in setting up the legal framework for digital health applications (DiGA) in Germany—and importantly, he convinced health insurers in Germany not to nickname them DiVA, an acronym which would have carried distinctly less gravitas.

Starting with this episode, Eugene says farewell (for now) to DTx trailblazers in the United States, and shifts the focus to leaders in Europe, where Christian and other thought leaders are working to broaden access to digital health solutions. Eugene and Christian recorded this episode in January, and since then, there have been some exciting updates to the status of DVG. Namely, the list of approved digital therapies for reimbursement has grown to 13, and Germany is starting to publish early data on the impact of the measure.

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