Episode 206

What Happens When a Cancer Diagnosis at 17 Shapes Your Entire Career? With Rae McMahan || EP.206

Jul 8, 2025

16:56

Episode Description

Standing at a hospital desk at 17, facing a Hodgkin's disease diagnosis, Rae McMahan heard words that would reshape her entire life: "We don't have your prior authorization on file."

That broken moment in a broken system launched a career dedicated to fixing what fails patients every day. Now, as Senior Vice President of Payer Solutions at Prescriptive, Rae is revolutionizing how 260 million Americans access medications—because no one should discover what their life-saving prescription costs only when they reach the pharmacy counter.

But her journey wasn't straightforward. Expected to "get married, have kids and stay home," Rae chose a different path—one that led from nearly becoming a physician to mastering the business of healthcare transformation.

In this episode of Inspiring Women with Laurie McGraw, Rae also speaks about:

Why pharmacy benefits are the number one utilized benefit and first indicator of health problems
How text message prescriptions are disrupting decades of pharmacy confusion
What happens when technology costs go down everywhere except healthcare
Why connecting lab tests, AI, and genetics could eliminate medication guesswork
How to choose your own journey when it doesn't match family expectations
What it means to say "no" in a culture that expects women to say "yes"

Chapters

04:02 - A Teenager's Cancer Diagnosis Meets a Broken System

06:33 - From Patient to Healthcare Revolutionary

08:22 - The Reverse Technology Paradigm in Healthcare

10:57 - The Magic Wand: Personalized Medicine Without the Guesswork

13:35 - Choosing Your Journey Over Others' Expectations

15:55 - Finding Your Village and Your Voice

Guest & Host Links