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Culture, technology, and hard math
Earnings are the result, but the culture is the driver, Robin says. She regularly reminds corporate staff that headquarters is not driving revenue and that their job is to support the people taking care of patients in the field. That service mindset, combined with a longtenured leadership team, has helped Rotech weather some of the steepest reimbursement cuts in healthcare.
When she started, Medicare paid around $ 410 a month for an oxygen concentrator. Today, the rate is under $ 100 and limited to 36 months, with only small payments after that. To survive that shift, Rotech leaned into technology and automation earlier than many competitors, adopting AI-enabled tools and tightening vendor partnerships to eliminate cost while protecting service levels.
“ We’ ve had to look at all of those avenues because we’ ve had to take costs out to be able to continue to deliver the care our patients deserve,” Robin notes.
Beyond the numbers, Robin says the past several years have forced the organization to clarify its identity. That has meant investing heavily in training, tightening processes across more than 300 locations, and elevating field leaders who embody Rotech’ s patientfirst mindset. She notes that some of the company’ s best ideas around workflow, technology, and community outreach have come from branch teams closest to patients, rather than from headquarters.
A louder voice in Washington
Robin’ s influence now reaches well beyond Rotech’ s footprint. As chair of the Council for Quality Respiratory Care( CQRC), she has become a key advocate on Capitol Hill for patients who rely on supplemental oxygen. Her current priority is passage of the bipartisan Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform( SOAR) Act, which aims to stabilize oxygen reimbursement and update benefit design, so it reflects how care is actually delivered today.
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