Walk Away From The Table

“The single most powerful tool for winning a negotiation is the ability to walk away from the table without a deal.”

Harvey Mackay in Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten

This is a very good book, by the way, and I was just reading it again recently.  What reminded me of this quote was an editorial in The Journal of Family Practice entitled “Orthopedist urges higher FP pay“.   Check it out.   He gets it and it is a good read.   My favorite part, though, was this:

A question I regularly ask my family medicine colleagues is whether it is best for them to remain members of the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). It is important to realize that the future of the RUC rests with family physicians. If the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) dropped out of the RUC while noting that it was fundamentally unfair to primary care doctors, it is quite likely that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would find a more equitable solution. Alternatively, family doctors could demand greater representation on the committee and attempt to change it from within.

Now you know why I thought of Harvey.    I have said it before.  We need to walk away from the table and then they would come running.   But having wusses represent us at the AAFP does us no good.  Maybe we should walk away from the AAFP.