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Friend has a now grown son who used to be a D3 pitcher. While he was pitching, he blew his UCL and needed TJS.

I didn't know his son pitched or had TJS until way after the son finished school. But, I had questions about it and he shared something that I never thought about until he mentioned it.

He said it was too bad that he blew it out pitching in a summer college league game and not when he was pitching for the school in the spring...because...then the school would have paid for the surgery and it wouldn't have fallen on the family insurance (and out of pocket).

How does it work when a kid is playing in school from August through May? Are all medical expenses related to baseball injuries covered by the school? Does it have to happen in a game or practice? What about training in the weight room?

Is it coordinated in any way with the kid's own medical insurance? Does it vary from school to school?

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Be sure to validate what is covered at your own son's school.  It may vary.

Son had cortisone shots, CT scans, and two hip surgeries, plus the PT afterwards, paid for by his school.  "Incident" happened during the season, but surgeries were in the summer. The school fills out a sheet about "the incident", not unlike workers comp, with the insurance information included.

When he checked in to all medical offices, he presented that information, as well as our own family insurance information as secondary insurance  (but it was never used). 

For us, our insurance is primary and the school's is secondary. However, there are certain exclusions and various things, plus you have to consider meeting deductibles on your own insurance. I don't have an exact figure (estimate 1-2k), but I did come out of pocket for some of my son's Internal Brace surgery. FWIW, since it was partially torn, and progressively got worse, there's no definite time when it actually happened, but he was in the middle of regular season when it was too painful to continue.

When son broke ankle in freshman year, school paid for everything including ambulance ride.  We nor our insurance paid a dime.  Middle son's school filed our insurance and then picked up the difference and any out of pocket.  You want to know for sure.  Youngest son's school pays even out of season if you are coming back for sure because they want it done right but you have to use their doctors.

Even some Junior Colleges carry secondary insurance policies that cover their student athletes. That was the case with my son that played JuCo ball in Oklahoma. We filed insurance claims for his medical expenses but the school’s secondary policy covered the out of pocket expenses. That came as a pleasant surprise because in his two years there he had 3 MRIs, 4 injections in his back, a couple x-rays, and a bunch of rehab sessions. The school also had an excellent training staff, and that’s also not necessarily the norm at Junior Colleges.

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