Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 06.26.26 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Appeal Insurance Denials About this episode Friday - Clark Stinks day! Christa shares Clark Stinks posts with Clark. Submit yours at Clark.com/ClarkStinks. Also, when your health insurer denies coverage for a treatment, procedure, or medication, don't assume that's the final answer. Clark explains a little-known consumer right that could help you overturn a denial: an external appeal reviewed by an independent third party. While some patients do appeal insurance decisions, very few take the next step when they're denied again. Clark shares why persistence matters, how the appeals process works, and why insurers often reverse decisions when consumers push back. For serious illnesses, these denials aren't just about money—they can be a matter of life and death. Learn how to fight back, when to appeal again, and how an independent review could force your insurer to pay for care it initially refused to cover.
All this and more on the June 26, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show.
Clark Stinks: Segments 1 & 2
Insurance Appeals: Segment 3
Ask Clark: Segment 4
Mentioned on the show:
6 Home Expenses You Have To Budget For (Beyond Your Mortgage)
Privacy and security built into your payments
5 Money Tips To Know Before You Travel Abroad
5 Best Places To Buy Pet Medicines - Clark Howard
How To Get a Gym Membership for Practically Free - Clark Howard
What Is a CD Ladder and When Is It a Good Idea? - Clark Howard
Should I Avoid Callable CDs? / CD Ladder Calculator - Clark Howard
What Should You Do if Your Insurance Claim Is Denied?
This Little-Known Appeal Could Force Your Insurer to Pay. Here’s How to File It.
How To Buy Term Life Insurance in 7 Easy Steps - Clark Howard
Clark.com resources:
Episode transcripts
Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark
Clark.com daily money newsletter
Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:21 Speaker 02 It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show, where our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. I hope one decision you've made that can pay dividends is to subscribe to our free daily newsletter at clark.com/newsletter or newsletters. Today's Friday, which means it's time for you to let me know.
1:53 Speaker 02 How I can serve you better in our weekly Clark stinks segment. Also today, I want to give you some new added info about something I addressed a while back. And that is the strategy of health insurers to decline your care. How you fight back where persistence matters. Got a story about that coming for you later. But right now it's time for you to hear how I'm stinking it up.
2:25 Speaker 03 I should have never encouraged you to speak. You must think I'm pretty stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself. Well, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong.
2:32 Speaker 04 Maybe you're right, pal.
2:38 Speaker 04 Okay, room star Pete in California stink. He says, I've listened to you for years now and really have gotten some great tips. On a recent podcast, you were mentioning that having your home paid off and owing it free and clear can give many people peace of mind. The problem is that no one really owns their home free and clear. Maybe mortgage free, but if you don't pay your property taxes every year, the government can foreclose on your property.
3:04 Speaker 02 That's true, that's true. The ongoing costs of owning a home extend beyond that. You said California? I mean, think about what people in California are dealing with with homeowners insurance in a lot of places where the homeowners insurance, if you've been in a home a while, you still have a mortgage. The homeowners insurance premium could rival or even exceed what your remaining mortgage payments are. So you're right when I say free and clear. That is not a true statement. You have the cost of maintenance with a home. You have insurance. You have taxes. You have repairs. You have utilities.
3:49 Speaker 02 But getting that mortgage out of the way does make a material difference financially in people's lives and it feels great.
3:59 Speaker 04 Daniel in North Carolina says, you don't stink, but you do have a sweaty sock that just fell behind the washing machine smell. That's gross.
4:07 Speaker 02 I was worried my sock smelled right now.
4:09 Speaker 04 No. Over the past several episodes, you talked about people worrying about recurring monthly payments on gym memberships or other monthly memberships that they can't cancel. You suggest creating a separate account through a bank or credit card to pay for these memberships so they won't be tied to your existing credit cards. You left out a tip I got from listening to you a few years ago about privacy.com. For privacy.com, it's a financial technology service that allows you to generate virtual disposable credit cards for online purchases that can have a spend limit and be frozen without affecting your existing credit cards. I found it great to use, but are you not mentioning it because you forgot, or do you no longer recommend the site?
4:51 Speaker 02 No, I'm flaky. I forgot to mention it. And yeah, and it's funny because we talked about it right at the top of a podcast, and then here I talk about other ways of doing it and fail to mention privacy.com, so.
5:07 Speaker 04 So I'm me too. I'm your producer. I should have been all over that.
5:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, but you and I are both flaky. So who's going to remind us?
5:17 Speaker 04 I don't know.
5:18 Speaker 02 You know who's going to remind us?
5:19 Speaker 04 Which?
5:20 Speaker 02 That was Daniel.
5:20 Speaker 04 Daniel wrote that one. Yep. Thanks, Daniel. Elaine in Florida says, Clark, you smell like a farm fertilized with chicken poop.
5:28 Speaker 02 Woo!
5:28 Speaker 04 Gross. Not really, but you've always said you don't need much cash when going to Europe, and you recommend taking a Charles Schwab debit card. Well, I found myself in a dilemma. I opened a Charles Schwab checking account, put $600 in it, which I thought was way more than I would ever need, and got my debit card the day before we left for Turkey and Croatia. We needed cash for tips at restaurants and for private tour guides. We needed 140 euros for taxes on the cruise boat that could only be paid in cash. Before I knew it, I'd gone through $600, and I needed another 300 euros to pay for tips for the cruise director and crew that were not included in the cost of the cruise. For information, it was, and they tell us the company name, "I transferred money from
6:13 Speaker 04 my credit union to my Charles Schwab checking, but because the account had not been open for 30 days, it took four or five business days to access the money. I also could have saved 10% on the drinks that we bought on the boat if I had had cash. My mistake was not bringing my credit union debit card also."
6:30 Speaker 02 Okay, so now you're in my world, Elaine.
6:35 Speaker 02 I travel way more than normal for people internationally. And I do, in fact, carry two ATM cards. I carry the Schwab one and I carry one from Navy Federal Credit Union. Because if I have a problem with one, I have them locked down till I'm going to need them. And then I go on the app and unlock them to get cash. And if one doesn't work, I still have the other to get money. So that is a great suggestion. I'm sorry about that. And Krista, you were recently in Croatia. How does it rank? Because it's a really in destination.
7:15 Speaker 04 Oh, I loved it.
7:16 Speaker 02 Should it be in?
7:17 Speaker 04 Yes, it's a wonderful place. I don't think I'd go this time of year, though. Like, as it gets more into summer, it's really, I heard it gets super crowded. But Italy's even more crowded. So people love going to both those places.
7:30 Speaker 02 I was in Prague. That was a staff trip.
7:32 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
7:33 Speaker 02 And I'm surprised that a lot of people who went on that staff trip still talk to me. Because we went in January because it was
7:40 Speaker 04 It was a deal.
7:41 Speaker 02 It was a deal. And it was record cold temperatures and it was just brutally cold. But anyway, going to the tourist sites, there was nobody at any of them.
7:51 Speaker 04 Well, there you go.
7:52 Speaker 02 And then the next time I'm in Prague, it's summer. And you can't even walk.
7:57 Speaker 04 Can't walk or move. Oof, no, it was great. I loved Croatia. Rich in Washington wrote in with this one. Clark, you smell like a carry-on flower. You gave an incomplete answer when asked about pet meds. You said, just go to the warehouse clubs. There's another place to get a better price than your vet, especially for prescription meds. Chewy, my vet charged me $25 for four pills for our five-pound hellhounds. I found them on Chewy for 10 cents each. As long as you have your dog's vet record.
8:28 Speaker 02 How much each?
8:28 Speaker 04 10 cents each.
8:30 Speaker 02 Wait, and at the vet, they were $6.25 each?
8:34 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
8:35 Speaker 02 That's a little bit of a markup.
8:37 Speaker 04 As long as you have your dog's vet record up to date, Chewy will call your vet and get the prescription for you and fill it. I love what you do for the public. Thanks. If you would like to share another experience we had on how to save on vet bills, our vet told us our two dogs had loose teeth and gave us a quote of $1,500 to $1,800 each for teeth extractions. We packed our bags and took a road trip to Mexico with the pups. For both dogs, we ended up paying $212 total for physical and extractions. The money saved paid for a nice vacation in Mexico.
9:11 Speaker 02 So you drove all the way from Washington State at the Canadian border, all the way to Mexico. Now, this is my kind of cheap person.
9:19 Speaker 04 I know, I know. I wonder if Lane's hearing this because she loves her dogs.
9:24 Speaker 02 So I don't think we ever covered it. We talked about it in one of our meetings, but in a survey of the best and worst companies in America, Chewy came in number one as best company. And if you are a pet owner like we are, and you do business with Chewy, they are the most customer oriented outfit ever. And they're a company that Amazon tried to crush. They failed completely because they offer the kind of customer service that Amazon used to offer, but doesn't anymore.
10:04 Speaker 04 All right. AJ and Cal.
10:05 Speaker 02 Why'd you make that funny face?
10:07 Speaker 04 I just love it.
10:07 Speaker 02 You said something about Amazon.
10:09 Speaker 04 No, no, no. Actually, I'm still thinking about the dogs. I was thinking about, if you really want to know, that years ago, I remember one of your dogs got a knee replacement. And I wonder how much difference that would have been if you had gone to like Mexico, right?
10:24 Speaker 04 I'm sorry you asked.
10:28 Speaker 04 Right?
10:28 Speaker 02 The things we have done medically for our dogs over the decades. Oh, man.
10:36 Speaker 04 Okay. All right. AJ sent one in for me. Hey, we all stink sometimes. Small suggestion, maybe a few uh huh and mm interjections while others are talking. It can get a little distracting. You seem to do it more with Wes. Makes me wonder if there's a minimum word count you need to hit. Just kidding. So, thank you. I'm going to take that under advisement AJ and watch myself. This one came in from Chris in Arizona.
11:02 Speaker 02 I've never heard, I've never noticed you doing ums and stuff.
11:05 Speaker 04 You're just used to me. But it's always good to pay attention and improve.
11:10 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:10 Speaker 04 You railed against smartphones as the catalyst for antisocial behavior. Clark, I won't call you Mr. Howard here. I think you're blaming the wrong thing. Smartphones aren't making people less social any more than telephones did. The bigger issue is social media and algorithm driven platforms designed to maximize engagement. If all smartphones did was call, text, navigate and take photos, I don't think we'd be having this conversation. The phone is just the delivery system. The engagement model is the real story. And PS, have you seen the light phone yet?
11:44 Speaker 02 I don't know that one.
11:44 Speaker 04 It's a great compromise to the out of control world we're in now in regards to this topic.
11:49 Speaker 02 Well, and that is, I see it's trademark.
11:52 Speaker 04 Mm hmm.
11:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm not familiar with that. I'll look at that. So, no doubt, especially for preteens and teens, social media is the big hook. But for adults, social media is a huge hook on devices. And the endless scrolling that people do and how the algorithms get you outraged or give you what you're interested in or all that. And taking some time off from social media on devices is a great idea. And I remember there was buzz years ago about designating one day a week that you didn't go on social media. And that, that buzzed right into oblivion.
12:36 Speaker 02 But I think if that works for you to take a break, you might find you have less anxiety. You're less isolated and maybe it becomes more than just once a week that you're not sucked into the algorithm of social media.
12:54 Speaker 04 Jim in Virginia says, Clark may not stink. He's just having a senior moment. When you mention to people how to pay for health clubs, mention people that have supplemental insurance may also have the silver sneaker where the insurance pays the monthly fees. And a lot of people I know, their companies might offer these programs where you can take gym classes through your insurance for free, which is really cool.
13:16 Speaker 02 Well, let's go to this one, silver sneaker.
13:18 Speaker 04 Yep, that's something for seniors. I think that's through Medicare. All right, we'll come back to that. I could be totally off base there. John in Florida says, Clark, my wife and I looked up to you as an icon and I'm disappointed in your advice on CD laddering when I advised two people to follow you and you never mentioned callable versus non-callable CDs. All three of us had our CDs recalled within a year and a half because we got recallable. Yet you have one of your writers, Christopher, write an article that does not explain that. I emailed you about this, never got a response. Maybe, wow, maybe you had gas that day. Very disappointing for a person we watch and look forward to hearing.
13:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, so fortunately callable CDs are pretty rare. But it's wild that you and two others all got burned by callable CDs. Let me tell you what this means. So you buy a CD and under the contract, you have an interest rate of whatever it is for whatever period of time. Callable ones tend to be longer term, like five-year CDs. So the financial institution realizes, hey, we're giving people too good a deal with this. And they invoke something in the contract. It's the call provision that they can cancel your CD early when it benefits them.
14:43 Speaker 02 It's almost like there are times there are callable various forms of securities or bonds that exist. John, I'm really, really sorry and we will absolutely add something into our article about CD laddering and the warning about callable CDs. And if they become more common than I realize, you've just taught me something.
15:07 Speaker 04 Yes, thank you. Sorry about that, and we'll fix that on Clark.com. Silver Sneakers, going back to the prior question, is a fitness and wellness program available at no additional cost to seniors 65 plus on eligible Medicare plans. It covers basic gym memberships at thousands of participating locations nationwide alongside specially designed in-person classes and on-demand and online workouts.
15:31 Speaker 02 Okay. See, I learned something every day.
15:34 Speaker 04 And also, if you're on your employer's health insurance plan, see if they offer any kind of gym membership reimbursement or any of these programs where you can buy in a certain amount. I have a friend who can pay $60 a month and get $150 gym membership at several different gyms in his area, so.
15:51 Speaker 02 The gym membership is how much a month?
15:53 Speaker 04 $150.
15:54 Speaker 02 And how much are they paying?
15:56 Speaker 04 60.
15:57 Speaker 02 And 60 I'm supposed to be excited about?
16:00 Speaker 04 These are specially gym memberships that cost a lot of money. It's not the basic.
16:05 Speaker 02 I just had to make fun of you.
16:06 Speaker 04 I know. People will make fun of me, too. I know. But, you know, I do spend money on my gym.
16:10 Speaker 02 And
16:11 Speaker 04 It's important to me.
16:12 Speaker 02 You're fit like someone 25 years younger than you are.
16:16 Speaker 04 Not true.
16:16 Speaker 02 It is true.
16:17 Speaker 04 But it's something I'll save in other areas to take care of my health the way I'm inspired to go to the gym and take the classes, so. Sorry. Not sorry.
16:28 Speaker 02 Well, I want to thank all of you who posted today. And if you were to listen in the archive to a prior Clark Stinks and then listen to this one, you'd be amazed how different the things are that people talk about and how many topics come forward that we all learn from. I learn, you learn, we're all helping each other. We're all part of the same team, trying to develop more knowledge to make better decisions in our lives. And so, I'm grateful to you for posting the Clark Stinks that you post.
17:09 Speaker 02 I might not always agree with what you post, but I will tell you, I always learn from them. Coming up ahead, I'm talking about something that we hear constantly about. Somebody needs medical care and the insurer says, "Get lost." What do you do? Got a story to share with you about that.
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19:46 Speaker 02 So over and over and over again, denials of care. I get them. I got one recently. My health insurer uses a review service that their whole job is to lower costs and cost shift to the patient. And so I get the denial for something after I'd already had the medical service. And what do you do? You don't just take it. You appeal in all different kinds of circumstances. And as I shared with you months ago, almost nobody does. The denial, you say, oh, well, go eat some worms.
20:31 Speaker 02 I mean, the reality is you stand up for yourself. Doesn't mean you're going to win. And if it's involving somebody who needs critical care, cancer, heart disease, whatever, let's face it, insurers a lot of times have a moral ethical problem. They don't want to spend the money. And I do believe there are times they just want you to die before you get the care because they don't want to spend the money. Fact. I said opinion. And then I said fact. It's a fact that that's my opinion. So you appeal and know that particularly the more expensive the care, the more likely that appeal will be turned down, the cheaper, whatever it is, you're much more likely
21:16 Speaker 02 to have it approved. Hey, this person's going to be a problem. Just let them have the test. Just let them do whatever. Oh, this is really expensive. We're just going to turn them down. We're not even going to really look at it. We're just going to turn them down. And then you appeal that again because usually with a health insurer, you've got a second appeal following the first. But here's something that comes up from time to time and people don't know, depending on your insurance contract or the laws for insurance in your state, you may have a right to an appeal by an outside panel or an outside source.
21:58 Speaker 02 And when I say, nobody goes that far, I mean, the stakes need to be high, but then somebody may be ill to the point that it's just hard for them to get up and move during the day. They don't have the physical or mental energy with the illness they're facing to go through the various appeals and then to do the outside appeal process if it's available. You know what? That's when you're the best family member or friend you can be. You become the advocate. You help the ailing loved one or friend with that appeal. You make a difference for them that could save their lives. We get to serious illnesses.
22:42 Speaker 02 We're not talking about money anymore. We're talking about life and death. The insurer and the person working for the insurer, if they're soft-hearted, they're going to lose their job or not get promoted. Their job is to say no. Your job is to turn a no into a yes. And Krista, I think about over the years, how many complaints, questions we've had, and I've done it a lot on TV about people that are delayed, delayed, delayed, denied.
23:19 Speaker 02 It just is despicable. And it's because capitalism works best when interests are aligned with health insurance in the United States. Capitalism is broken down because we are not looked at as the customer. The customer is looked at by whoever's paying the premiums, the lion's share of the premiums, which is usually going to be an employer. And so the insurers are trying to improve their profits and also please the employer. One other thing you need to know, a lot of big companies have what looks like insurance, but is not.
24:03 Speaker 02 They're what sometimes are referred to as medical reimbursement plans. They're not insurance. The employer is absorbing the cost of your care and they hire an insurer to be the bad guy telling you no. Know that this is how the game is played because there's no win-win here. They take care of you, they lose. That's why their interests are diametrically opposed to yours and you have to stand up for yourself as the law allows.
24:38 Speaker 04 Well, I've got an example of that. We have a follow-up that was sent in by Steve in Washington. He says, hi Clark, a few months ago, I sent you a question about a lab test concerning my prostate cancer. You might remember that my biopsy results were sent to a lab to do a decipher test in order to confirm my diagnosis. My insurance stated this lab test was investigational and denied coverage, which would be $6,000 for me to pay. At the time, you recommended appealing and also reaching out to the state department of health. Department of health wasn't any help. My first appeal was denied, reviewed apparently by someone with a sports medicine background. I know.
25:16 Speaker 02 How irrelevant is that?
25:18 Speaker 04 My second appeal was denied too. It was reviewed by a doctor. I forget the specialty. By the way, I also checked with the Prostate Cancer Foundation website and they certainly back up the decipher test. I used the website in my information that I sent in. My final appeal that was reviewed by an outside agency and the determination to be binding overturned the denial. They referenced the National Comprehensive Cancer Network as endorsing the use of the decipher test. Maybe this will help other listeners and as you've always said, always fight and appeal, do not just give up. So happily, I hung in there for seven months to get this result. Thank you so much for your inspiration and help with suggestions.
26:00 Speaker 02 So Steve, what you didn't say is how you're doing and I hope your health is good, that the care you're getting is making a difference in your life. And thank you for sharing this. It dovetails perfectly with what we were just talking about, about how you appeal, you appeal, you appeal, you don't give up. And especially in this case, the stakes are high, life versus death or illness. And all the insurer cares about is they didn't want to pay the money for something that's considered to be a mainstream test.
26:37 Speaker 04 Okay, now Lydia in Colorado wrote in with this, Clark, I went in for my annual physical, my doctor ordered an A1C test, my insurance company denied it because I did not meet a certain body mass index, the lab is now sending me a bill for $250, which is an outrageous charge for this blood test, I want to negotiate this bill down to a reasonable amount, if my insurance had covered this, they probably would have paid no more than $15, I've called the billing number for the lab and have not gotten anywhere with being able to negotiate this rate, do you have any advice, I can file an appeal with my insurance company, but it is unlikely to be covered.
27:13 Speaker 02 So Lydia, all strategies work, file the appeal and see if that does help, and then with the lab, find out, normally the labs will have some kind of, they don't call it patient advocate, or something like that, get in there and read who the various officials are, that they're not putting on the consumer facing website, but if you go to their information for investors, or whatever, and you'll read Wall Street releases and stuff, you'll see who the key people are, usually in the investment stuff, they'll even give the email address
27:52 Speaker 02 for the person who's being quoted, and you contact someone up the food chain, at labs generally, the people in the billing departments may or may not even work for the lab, it may be outside contractors, they're usually not given authority to negotiate on the bills, so you've got to get around the normal customer no service bureaucracy and get to someone at the lab, and all you want to do is you want to negotiate to a different amount, now you can try one other thing with customer no service, you can request a private pay rate, private pay rate gets a lab more money than they get from insurance.
28:38 Speaker 02 But less than the retail they're billing you for. That may work. So if you hear me here, it's not a strategy that works. You push different buttons to see what might get you the right result.
28:52 Speaker 04 And Dan in Georgia says, I wanted to share with you an interesting experience I had shopping around for life insurance. I recently welcomed my second child to the world, a sweet baby girl.
29:03 Speaker 02 Congratulations.
29:05 Speaker 04 I had a $650,000 life insurance policy with USAA. It was a 30-year level term for $75 a month. I bought this back when my income was much lower. So I wanted to bring my policy in line with my current income and family needs. I wanted to increase it to a million dollars. I chose a 25-year term to keep the same time horizon. The other one was purchased in 2021. I didn't say that. I chose a 25-year term to keep the same time horizon. I was approved for a policy for $77 a month.
29:36 Speaker 02 Isn't that what you said the old policy was for a lot less money?
29:40 Speaker 04 Yeah. I was very surprised because I was expecting this to be more expensive with the larger amount and me being five years older. My question is, how much do my age, length, and amount affect the rate? And should we be shopping our policies every five years to get a lower rate or more coverage?
29:57 Speaker 02 Okay. So your mortality risk is morbid, but rises every year. And normally, when you replace the one you already had for 650,000, 600,000, whatever it was, and go to a million, in that case, you'd be facing a double whammy. Higher premiums because you're going for more coverage. And higher premiums because your age is now older. Now, you're shortening the term by five years, which helps some with the actuarial risk. But the variable here that actually is the key variable is competition in the market for level-term insurance.
30:40 Speaker 02 Because level term is transparent. All you're buying is a, for a period of years. A death benefit of a certain amount, no crazy savings accounts, investment accounts, anything like that. It's very easy to compare one insurer to another. So the prices for level term insurance remain extremely competitive and very favorable. There's also something positive. You don't hear a lot of positive about the country these days. We're kind of down on where things are. But anyway, there's a positive, and that is life spans are increasing again
31:19 Speaker 02 in the United States. There's been a meaningful improvement in expected life spans after years of stalling out and then a serious decline during COVID when we sadly lost so many people. So now the actuarial risk to insurers is likely a little lower as well. But the main thing is comparison shopping. Your case, you went back to the same insurer, USAA. But there's a real advantage with level term insurance, comparing one insurer to another with a window as long as 25, 30 years. You want to make sure that you check out the
32:00 Speaker 02 financial health of an insurer. You want to buy from an A++ rated insurer, that means for financial strength, or at the least A+. And just the fact that right in the house where you already were, USAA, you're getting a much better deal five years later is great. But you know what's really awesome? That birth of your new child. Congratulations. And thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you've enjoyed being with us this week. Great weekend plans in front for me. Hope for you as well. And look forward to being
32:39 Speaker 02 with you on Monday. We serve you all week long at Clark.com and Clarkdeals.com, including on the weekend. And that empowerment is available to you 24 hours a day, every day of the year. All about you being empowered so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. We'll see you Monday.
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