OBJECTIVES: Game theoretic models are a standard tool in economics to model strategic interaction of various types, e.g. negotiations. The aim of this research is to study in how far these models are used in the health care literature with a focus on negations, for example, in pharmaceutical pricing.

METHODS: PubMed (Medline) and LIVIVO were systematically searched by search operators modeled after PICOSS schemes. Eligibility criteria included price negotiations vs. general negotiations in health care (focusing drug context) using game theory. The extraction included available English-language articles published from January 1^St 2004 to 31^st March 2019.

RESULTS: A total of 1168 documents was retrieved. 796 full texts (excluding 372 duplicates) were screened. Of these, 126 inlcuded application of game theory, research on negotiations was carried out in 109 cases, the intersection covers 5 cases. In these 5 cases a model was presented explaining the process dependencies of the negotiations. In the cases with price negotiations (3) substantial parts of the structure could be explained. Apart from negotiations, game theory in the health care literature is mainly applied in the following three areas: Vaccination-based cases (13); scenarios with resource allocation & provider-based cases (20) and approaches to administrative problems (10). In relation to this, empirical studies based on statistically evaluable data were obtained in 282 cases. A more comprehensive categorization is provided on the poster.

CONCLUSIONS: In relation to the relevance of various negotiations in healthcare, game theory approaches are rarely used to obtain a better understanding of the underlying incentive structures. Given the fact, that reliable data on health care issues, especially pharmaceutical pricing, are notoriously difficult to get, the question arises whether the few process focused studies are due to particularities of the science or whether there is simply a gap in potentially valuable research to be filled.