Eighteen years ago, Harlon Pickett didn’t enter the health benefits world because he trusted it—he entered because he didn’t. In the trailer for Side Effects May Include, he describes buying health insurance for the first time and discovering a price tag that felt impossible: $800 a month for a family of four (and that was nearly two decades ago). That sticker shock wasn’t just a personal frustration. It became the start of a mission—one shaped by the growing realization that the system most people depend on for “coverage” can also create financial harm in plain sight.
Today, Harlon and Kellie Pickett are Executive Producers of Side Effects May Include: The Hidden Costs of Prescription Drugs, a documentary that takes aim at a part of healthcare most employers rarely see clearly until it’s too late: the prescription drug pricing pipeline and the powerful middle layer operating inside it.
The moment “doing the right thing” wasn’t enough
In the trailer, Harlon recounts a hard truth: he believed he was doing the best possible thing for a client—only to watch that client still end up bankrupt. For Kellie, that moment lands like an alarm bell: Who pays 5000% more than they have to… and who would accept that if they just knew?
That emotional core matters, because it frames what this film is really about. It isn’t just outrage at high prices. It’s about the hidden mechanics that can turn “benefits” into a budgetary trap—especially for small businesses.
By 2014, Harlon describes a reality many employers recognize immediately: offering benefits became unaffordable, even for people working inside the industry. That contradiction—selling the solution you can’t afford yourself—is what pushed the Picketts deeper into investigating where the money actually goes.
The Prescription Drug “Black Box”
Side Effects May Include shows that prescription drugs—and specifically the Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) ecosystem—are a microcosm of the broader healthcare system: complex, contract-driven, and highly profitable for players most members never meet. In this documentary, you will get a “raw, unfiltered look” at prescription drug pricing and the “middlemen” who profit from it, featuring interviews with whistleblowers, drug pricing experts, and benefits professionals who’ve seen the system from the inside.
Harlon makes a claim that cuts against the familiar narrative that healthcare is “broken.” His argument is sharper: the PBM system isn’t malfunctioning—it’s operating exactly as designed by the people who benefit from that design.
Whether you’re an employer, a broker, or an employee trying to make sense of rising copays, that idea reframes the conversation from Why is this happening? to Who does this structure reward—and what can we change?
Why Eagle Care Health Solutions is tied to this story
Eagle Care prioritizes transparency, affordability, and client-focused solutions, with a mission centered on making healthcare easier to navigate.
Eagle Care itself describes its foundation as improving access to high-quality healthcare, anchored in core values of Access, Commitment, and Trust.
And importantly: Eagle Care’s approach is customizable, pointing to a range of options beyond traditional “one-size-fits-all” insurance—such as Direct Primary Care, concierge-style models, healthsharing, affordable copays, and Health Savings Accounts.
That matters in the context of drug pricing because PBMs don’t exist in isolation. They’re part of a benefits design that often leaves employers paying more while employees delay care, ration prescriptions, or face pharmacy counter surprises. A company focusing on access and navigability is naturally pulled into the PBM conversation—because prescription costs are one of the fastest ways a plan can become unaffordable and unusable at the same time.
“Start here” — the employer move that must be made
One of the most actionable lines in the documentary is also one of the most pragmatic: Harlon calls the PBM piece “the easiest” lever for employers to pull first—because it can change spending quickly, and because it directly impacts employee health and household finances.
He points specifically to moving to a “true fiduciary PBM,” describing observed savings of 30% (and sometimes more) once contracts are structured differently. That’s a bold claim—and it’s also why the angle is so relevant: you don’t get better outcomes by hoping for better pricing. You get better outcomes by changing the incentives, the contract terms, and the transparency rules.
A practical checklist: what to do after you watch the trailer
If the trailer sparks the same question it’s designed to spark—What are we paying for, exactly?—here are grounded next steps employers and plan sponsors can take immediately.
1) Get the PBM contract (and don’t accept “you can’t see it”)
Kellie’s line lands for a reason: “If you can actually get your hand on it…” Many employers never see the contract language governing rebates, fees, definitions, audit rights, and reporting. If you don’t have the contract, you don’t have control.
2) Look for the telltale “fog machines”
Even without being a PBM expert, you can flag risk areas:
- Vague definitions of “pass-through”
- Limited audit rights (or audits only allowed by PBM-approved firms)
- Rebate language that doesn’t specify who keeps what
- Reporting that hides net cost behind averages
3) Demand transparency that matches fiduciary behavior
A fiduciary standard is about aligning incentives. If your PBM profits more when drugs cost more, you’re not negotiating from a neutral playing field.
4) Pair pharmacy transparency with access-focused care design
Eagle Care’s model emphasizes access and customizable pathways—such as virtual care, Direct Primary Care, and other membership-based options—because cost control only sticks when employees can actually use the care.
Eagle Care also highlights customized, membership-based models in public discussion of its approach, including improving access, affordability, and quality—particularly in rural and underserved communities.
The bigger point the film is making
The film’s mission page makes the stakes explicit: a system this entrenched won’t fix itself, and the people closest to it are choosing to pull back the curtain anyway.
That’s what gives Side Effects May Include its urgency. It isn’t presenting prescription drug pricing as an unfortunate side effect of modern medicine. It’s presenting it as an engineered outcome—one that can be challenged when employers and advisors stop outsourcing trust and start requiring proof.
