5 Questions With 2024 NJCAA Athletic Trainer of the Year Kyle Roepnack

Kyle Roepnack, the 204 NJCAA Athletic Trainer of the Year award winner, knows a thing or two about the student-athlete experience.

According to the NJCAA, this award is presented to an individual “who strives to make the optimal student-athlete experience on their campus while performing duties far beyond the institutional level.” As a certified athletic trainer and the head AT in the athletic department at Herkimer College in Herkimer, New York, Kyle’s made the health of the school’s student-athletes his number one priority for 19 years. All of us at A-G Specialty Insurance who’ve worked with him over the years are thrilled at this well-deserved recognition.

We recently spoke with Kyle about his experience as a junior college athletic trainer. During the call, he shared five top insights into the unique characteristics of an AT’s responsibility at the JUCO level versus the D1 level, especially when it comes to injured students and accident insurance claims—and how A-G helps.

5 Ways the Right Claims Service Helps JUCO ATs

1. It lets ATs focus on athlete care instead of insurance claims administration.

Kyle says that one of his student-athletes recently went through a two-year ordeal involving repeated ACL tears and treatments, compounded by the fact that the athlete was an international student with other unique aspects to the situation. A-G was able to remove a lot of the claims burden and follow-up in a very complicated situation so that all he had to do was “… focus on making sure that we had our doctor’s appointment set up and our rehab protocol ready for that student-athlete.”

2. It helps to reduce clerical workload.

Kyle shares that EGBAR, A-G’s automated claims management system, gets rid of all the paperwork. When it comes to filing a claim, “You can upload a claim form quick. You can upload bills right away, so it’s less time trying to fax it or using physical paper. It just speeds up that process.” He adds that it’s also painless to check up on a claim. “If I want to see if a claim has anything processed on it … or if payments have been made, I can reach [online] and go into that claim and check those things pretty quickly,” he says. These quick, automated functions are important in a junior college’s smaller athletic department, which has less staff to handle the paperwork than D1 schools do but still have a large roster of JUCO athletes involved in intercollegiate sports.

3. It walks the talk.

Because many A-G team members have been athletes, ATs, or played other roles in collegiate athletics, Kyle feels they have a unique awareness of the goals athletic departments like his are trying to accomplish, and that’s a big positive. “They make it as simple as possible because they know the workload that we’re under and what we’re trying to do.”

4. It makes the job easier.

A big benefit that Kyle has personally experienced when working with A-G is having a dedicated person who deals with his account and claims. “If we’re missing something or if I have a question, I can reach out to them, and they get back right away and always have an answer and support me in any way possible.” Kyle doesn’t have to take time away from caring for his student-athletes to search for information or problem-solve. It’s like having a larger staff to handle it.

5. It helps to compensate for smaller athletic department size.

The administration of sports insurance claims is a big responsibility in every athletic department. Kyle explains that D1 schools often have support staff that handles claims, while smaller JUCO schools have fewer ATs (one or two compared to many more at D1 schools) and usually don’t have a support staff that can take over insurance claims management. This often leaves ATs to take on that responsibility, which takes them away from treating and rehabilitating their injured players. “It really helps make up the difference in personnel,” Kyle explains, and says that working with A-G is like having a support staff handle the claims. It frees up ATs to get back to their first priority.

Do More With A-G as Part of Your Team

When your school’s athletic department adds A-G sports insurance coverage and EGBAR automated insurance claims management to the roster, your experience can be transformed. For more than 40 years, we have been committed to giving ATs like Kyle the time to do what they do best—such as win the 2024 NJCAA Athletic Trainer of the Year award! We’re glad that Kyle chose us to be part of his team and look forward to learning what the future brings him next.

Discover how an A-G sports insurance specialist could essentially help expand your school’s athletic department by taking over claims responsibilities and freeing you up to get back to your student-athletes. Just complete this form and we’ll be in touch to schedule a no-obligation talk about our programs. In the meantime, watch the video and enjoy Kyle’s complete interview.