Firefighter Caleb Halvorson was injured in a Fort Worth house fire in September. His stepfather, firefighter Bobbie Cook, said the city of Fort Worth made it hard for Halvorson to get treatment for his injuries.
Fort Worth Fire Department
In July 2024, Fort Worth police officer Bobbie Sanchez was working a vehicle burglary detail when she was elbowed in the face by a suspect she was apprehending. The force of the blow dislocated Sanchez’s jaw, permanently damaging both her temporomandibular joints, which connect the jawbone to the skull.
For nearly two years, Sanchez has lived with pain in her head, jaw, neck and shoulders, and it’s likely she’ll never be the same.
That much Sanchez has accepted. What she can’t accept are the hoops she said she and other police officers and firefighters have had to jump through to get medical care under the city of Fort Worth’s workers’ compensation program.
“What I want people to hear most is that my horrible experience is not unique,” Sanchez wrote in a message to the Star-Telegram.
Interviews and records obtained by the Star-Telegram revealed workers’ compensation disputes have indeed created a deep rift between those at City Hall and those tasked with keeping the city safe. And one firefighter said it’s breeding a culture of distrust that could have serious public safety implications.
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Firefighter’s case brings workers’ comp complaints to the forefront
In January, council member Charles Lauersdorf, a military veteran who was injured in combat, accused Sedgwick, the city’s third-party workers’ compensation administrator, of making it difficult for first responders to get care for injuries sustained in the line of duty.
Sedgwick says it is an industry-leading workers’ compensation claims administrator focused on speedy recovery for injured employees and lower costs for employers.
At the time of Lauersdorf’s public admonishment, Fort Worth firefighter Caleb Halvorson had gained widespread attention after Sedgwick declined to cover some aspects of his treatment. Halvorson was injured in September when a garage collapsed on him while he was battling a house fire. Halvorson spent 34 days in intensive care where he was treated for second- and third-degree burns, a dislocated knee and other injuries.
The Star-Telegram posed a number of questions to Sedgwick, but a spokesperson did not provide answers. In a statement, a city spokesperson said “the city follows the law and all regulatory guidelines related to injured/ill workers, including options for provider selection.”
In late January, Sedgwick approved Halvorson’s claims, but public perception had turned against what Lauersdorf called the “bureaucratic bull—-” that led to treatment delays.
According to records, Halvorson’s family had for months asked the city to intervene on his behalf with Sedgwick.
In early November, two months after Halvorson was injured, Assistant City Manager William Johnson emailed Lauersdorf and Mayor Mattie Parker to say he would ensure Halvorson received the best care possible. “We are totally committed to doing right by our heroes!” he wrote.
Days later, though, he emailed Lauersdorf and Parker to say there had been some complications.
“We have an extensive network of doctors and surgeons available to us through the workers compensation program, including highly qualified specialists that can provide the highest quality of care to meet Caleb’s needs,” Johnson wrote. “His father-in-law does not want to utilize any of them but is requesting that the City use City funds to pay for a particular doctor who is not and will not accept workers’ compensation insurance despite our efforts and requests for him to do so.”
The “father-in-law” is actually Halvorson’s stepfather, Bobby Cook, who is himself a Fort Worth firefighter. Cook had requested that Halvorson be treated by one of three orthopedic specialists, none of whom are in the city’s provider network. One of the specialists, City Manager Jay Chapa said in an email, is a doctor who cares for professional athletes and “is not interested in being a W/C provider.”
In a phone interview with the Star-Telegram, Cook said that was not true. The doctor, who practices at TMI Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery, was willing to accept workers’ compensation insurance for Halvorson and other first responders, but not for injured city employees from other departments.
Cook believes this is fair given the physical nature of what firefighters and police officers do, but he said the city wouldn’t allow Halvorson to use the TMI doctor unless the doctor agreed to treat all city workers.
In an email to city leaders, Cook said that approach was “inappropriate and dangerous.”
In the statement to the Star-Telegram, the city’s spokesperson said Fort Worth employees have access to a variety of in-network providers “covering numerous practice areas and locations.” The spokesperson added the city also contracts with out-of-network specialists “if deemed medically necessary.”
In another email to city leaders, Cook said Halvorson’s choice of a primary care physician was denied, and the family was told to use a doctor with Concentra or CareNow, nationwide chains offering occupational health care and urgent care services.
Cook told the Star-Telegram he laughed when the city told him that. The severity of his stepson’s injuries required a highly trained specialist’s care, Cook said, and it was frustrating when he was denied that.
Now, Halvorson has a city-approved doctor, but Cook said his treatment is lagging. Six months after being injured, Halvorson still struggles to walk. Cook said city leaders have expressed concern, but no one outside Lauersdorf has done much.
“They say they want to help, but they haven’t shown it.”
Other first responders echo workers’ comp concerns
Figures obtained from an open records request showed city employees filed 1,032 workers’ compensation claims in 2025, and 165 of those were denied. That equates to a roughly 16% denial rate. Despite that, records showed the city was over budget when it came to paying workers’ compensation benefits heading into the last month of last year’s fiscal year.
In January, Lauersdorf emailed Chapa and told him he’d heard from about a dozen first responders voicing complaints about Sedgwick. Emails from three of those individuals — two police officers, including Sanchez, and a police department employee who worked as a mechanic — were included in the records released to the Star-Telegram.
One officer, who said he was a 16-year veteran of the force, told Lauersdorf he’d been denied care by Sedgwick and had resorted to using his personal insurance to cover treatment costs related to an on-the-job injury that had occurred three years prior.
Sanchez forwarded Lauersdorf emails that showed a delayed response from her Sedgwick claims adjuster.
Based on those emails, it took nearly a month for Sanchez to receive an answer to a claim question. At the bottom of the Sedgwick adjuster’s emails is a message that says he is “committed to providing the responsiveness you deserve by responding to you in 24 hours.” The name and contact information for a Sedgwick team lead is provided in case that response time is not met.
On top of that, Sanchez said she needed to see an oral surgeon, but there wasn’t one in the city’s provider network. Because of that, Sanchez said, she had to find one on her own and pay out of pocket. Initially, Sedgwick denied her request to reimburse her copayment. Eventually, the company relented after Sanchez escalated her request, but it took approximately 10 months for her to get reimbursed.
Regarding her ongoing treatment, Sanchez said she was prescribed physical therapy to alleviate the pain she still experiences, but Sedgwick stopped approving coverage for that.
“I’m still very much in the workers’ comp claims process,” Sanchez wrote to the Star-Telegram. “The short answer is that it has been a logistical nightmare. If not for co-workers and a third-party case manager assigned to me, I cannot fathom what my journey would be.”
Another email chain obtained in the records request showed that in November, a police officer said he wanted to sue Sedgwick, alleging claims adjusters had mislabeled his injury and delayed his treatment. In one email, the officer said he was anxious to get a medical procedure done to treat the pain he’d been experiencing for six months.
In January, Lauersdorf emailed Kristen Smith, city human resources director, about two more workers’ compensation cases. In one of those, it took Sedgwick seven weeks to authorize treatment for an injured firefighter, who ended up having to pay out of pocket for some of his care.
In the other case, Sedgwick denied a firefighter’s workers’ compensation claim but approved a claim for another firefighter with similar injuries.
In response, Smith said the first firefighter opted for treatment outside the city’s provider network. Because of that, she said, the firefighter acknowledged he would have to pay for treatments and request reimbursement through Sedgwick. Additionally, Smith said, that firefighter switched doctors, which created further delays in getting him care.
In the second case, Smith said, a doctor determined the firefighter’s injuries were not sustained on the job. Smith said a judge reviewed that case and agreed with that determination.
When he replied to Smith, Lauersdorf said both firefighters disputed her version of events, and Lauersdorf told the Star-Telegram Smith’s response, in which the blame for delays was placed on the firefighters, didn’t sit well with him.
Lauersdorf told Smith he’d heard “horror stories” from 21 first responders who’d been denied care, and he said there were likely more who hadn’t yet spoken up.
In a text message to the Star-Telegram, Lauersdorf said first responders shouldn’t necessarily be given special treatment, but the city and its workers’ compensation administrators shouldn’t treat their injuries as typical on-the-job injuries.
“It should be our goal to get them back to the warrior athlete status they were before their injury in the line of duty,” Lauersdorf wrote. “They should certainly have the right to see specialists that deal with specialized injuries, not just your run-of-the-mill provider.”
Cook said firefighters have lost faith in the workers’ compensation system, and some are less willing to take risks in the field, which affects job performance. Cook argued that it’s hard to ask a firefighter to run into a burning house or a police officer to step in front of someone with a gun if they worry the city they serve won’t take care of them if something bad happens.
“We do our job,” said Cook. “We show up. It doesn’t matter. I fully expect them to return that when it’s time.”
What is the solution to workers’ compensation disputes?
Chapa and Assistant City Manager Dianna Giordano said in separate emails to the mayor and council members earlier this year that changes were coming to the workers’ compensation claims process.
Chapa said the city would hire a dedicated case manager to help injured first responders obtain treatment.
In the statement to the Star-Telegram, the city’s spokesperson said the new role will be filled sometime this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That position will support injured employees through the claims process and escalate cases if needed. The person will also serve as a liaison between employees and their departments on return-to-work options, as well as “increase reporting and visibility into claims activity.”
The new role, the city spokesperson said, will supplement the team of nurse case managers who already assist with severe or complex workers’ compensation claims.
In another statement, a spokesman for the Fort Worth Police Officers Association, the city’s police union, told the Star-Telegram that Chief Eddie Garcia created a position for a return-to-work coordinator who advocates for injured officers and helps them navigate the workers’ compensation claims process.
The spokesman said the Risk Management division of the city’s Human Resources department is also coming up with ways to reduce delays in approving medical diagnostic testing and certain conservative forms of treatment. Additionally, that division is developing employee training to improve cross-divisional communication, the spokesman said.
“We have scheduled quarterly meetings with all parties involved and separate breakout meetings to address specific topics,” the FWPOA statement read. “We have received strong support from the City and Police leadership, and are optimistic that these collaborative efforts will continue to improve the system.”
According to emails obtained by the Star-Telegram, the city is expected to issue a request for proposal in May or June for a workers’ compensation administrator. Lauersdorf said Sedgwick was welcome to respond to the RFP, but it won’t have his support.
FWPOA leaders asked the city to be involved in the RFP process. “The Police Department is one of the largest users of the workers’ compensation system, so we believe it is helpful to include our perspective, along with those of other City departments, when creating future contracts to ensure the system works effectively and efficiently,” the FWPOA spokesman said in a statement.
The city’s spokesperson did not respond when asked if Sedgwick would be allowed to participate in the upcoming RFP process. The spokesperson would only say Sedgwick has only one contract renewal option remaining, and because of that, the city would have to solicit bids for a new contract in 2027 at the latest.
“Sadly, I don’t believe Sedgwick is the main issue,” Sanchez, the police officer, wrote to the Star-Telegram. “I believe Sedgwick is a symptom of the workers’ comp problem at large.”
Sanchez said “the system is broken,” but she believes city and police department leaders are motivated to fix it. However, Sanchez said she’d like to see the state Legislature also get involved. Only then, she said, could there be a large-scale solution to benefit police officers and firefighters across Texas.
Cook said people tend to think workers’ compensation disputes are all about money, but he doesn’t see it that way.
“It’s about control and power,” said Cook. “That’s just my opinion.”
Cook thinks the city wants to exert control over the doctors in its approved provider network, and it wants to control where and how its employees seek treatment. Cook also thinks some of the disputes come down to a misconception about police officers and firefighters “milking the system” — essentially treating time off for injury as a paid vacation.
Cook insisted the vast majority of first responders just want to get back to work as soon as possible. And he added if it really is about money, the city would save more in the long run by approving claims faster and getting police officers and firefighters the treatment they need.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Matt Adams is a news reporter covering Fort Worth, Tarrant County and surrounding areas. He previously wrote about aviation and travel and enjoys a good weekend road trip. Matt joined the Star-Telegram in January 2025.