The fun Odysight app helps identify certain eye pathologies. Health insurance reimburses it as part of an experiment.
- Retinal pathologies, such as AMD or macular oedema, are the main causes of low vision and blindness in Europe.
- The use of this application is contraindicated for people with epilepsy.
Playing could preserve our health. Health Insurance is currently experimenting with the Odysight video game. Available on smartphones, it can detect vision problems, but not treat them. It must be prescribed by an ophthalmologist, who can use the patient’s results to identify a visual disorder.
Odysight: what game is reimbursed by health insurance?
The Odysight game is based on two tools: visual tests and puzzles. It is intended for patients requiring regular visual monitoring, in particular those suffering from retinal pathologies or likely to develop them. “The puzzles, which are original, fun and of increasing difficulty, reinforce the motivation of patients to carry out their examinations: users who solve puzzles are in fact 3 times more observant over time“, specify its creators on their site.
Thanks to a dashboard, the prescribing doctor has access to all the patient’s results, in real time. “If the application detects a decrease in visual acuity, it invites the patient to repeat a test the next day, develops the Odysight press release. If the second test confirms the results, a notification of loss of visual acuity is sent to the patient encouraging him to make an appointment with the healthcare professional.“At the same time, the doctor sees his patient’s profile displayed in red on his dashboard.
Why does health insurance reimburse a video game?
The reimbursement of Odysight is permitted thanks to article 51 of the social security financing law. It concerns the “innovations contributing to improving the care pathway for patients and the efficiency of the healthcare system“. In short, it aims to identify pathologies early enough to allow better management, and to avoid unnecessary control visits.
In his projectEdouard Gasser, co-founder of the start-up Tilak Healthcare which created the game, also explains that he wants “provide a response to a structural demographic ‘scissor effect’: the density of ophthalmologists is falling while the number of patients with chronic maculopathies is increasing, in particular due to the aging of the population“.
For now, the application is in the experimental phase: 1,500 patients have received specific codes to use the game for free. Eventually, it should join the list of products and devices reimbursed by Health Insurance.