In two weeks, the Fort Worth Police Department will sever ties with a doctor they previously honored, and city officials will not provide an explanation.
On January 28, a representative of BlackStone and CareWorks Managed Care Services wrote to Drs Jon Schweitzer and Steven Simmons at Southwest Sports and Spine, “You will be removed from the City of Fort Worth’s provider panel effective 90 days from the date of this letter, and the effective termination date will be April 28, 2025. If you receive requests for treatment by injured workers from the City of Fort Worth, please advise them you are no longer accepting new patients. You may refer them to their assigned claims examiner at Sedgwick should they have any questions or require assistance.”
The reason for this termination was unclear. The letter gave no details as to why the doctors were being removed from the provider panel that treats ailing city employees like police officers who have been injured in the line of duty.
This was a far departure from the City of Fort Worth’s previous relationship with the physicians at Southwest Sports and Spine. Emails obtained by The Dallas Express show that as recently as 2021, Mark J Barta, then-assistant HR Director for Risk Management, was helping Simmons put together a presentation so he could show others how the duo had saved the city money.
The emails indicate the working title of the presentation was “Self-Insured Municipality Surgical Cost Reduction Utilizing Stem Cell Treatments.”
Schweitzer’s bio on the Southwest Sports and Spine website reads, “He works doing expert testimony for work injuries and automobile accidents. In addition to his love of teaching he has taken and mentored many chiropractic interns from Parker University…He is active with CLEAT (Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas) advising injured officers and helping them navigate through the Workers’ Comp system. He was awarded the Legislative Leadership Award 2014 by the Texas Chiropractic Association.”
Simmons is an Army veteran who has practiced medicine since 2005. His bio reads, “Dr. Steven Simmons is a fellowship trained, interventional sports medicine and pain management physician who has been practicing since 2005. He has obtained multiple board certifications in pain medicine, sports medicine and family medicine… He has held faculty positions at Texas A&M University, UNT HSC-TCOM, and UT Southwestern. He has also been named to Fort Worth’s list of ‘Top Docs’ several times.”
The Dallas Express contacted Acting Police Chief Robert Alldredge for an explanation. He directed DX to a city spokesperson who repeated details of the January 28 letter but did not add much more information: “On January 28, 2025, Jon Schweitzer, D.C. and Steven Simmons, D.O. were notified that BlackStone, the City of Fort Worth’s 504 Physician Panel, is exercising the termination clause of the joinder agreement. Section 6 of the Rockport Provider Agreement (now Careworks), which is the underlying agreement for the Joinder, allows either party to terminate the agreement without cause provided either party issue 90 days’ advance written notice. As of the date of this request, both providers are still part of the BlackStone Network.”
The apparent lack of cause has raised concern from retired police officers who have come to depend on the care provided by Schweitzer and Simmons.
DX spoke to several of Southwest Sports and Spine’s police officer patients, with each telling the outlet a similar story. One retired Field Sergeant, Diane Sims, called Schweitzer and Simmons a “God send.”
Sims has been seeing the doctors for a back injury and other issues she sustained in the line of duty for around a decade, during both her time in the force and retirement. Sims said that the time before the city began working with Schweitzer and Simmons was a bureaucratic nightmare where police officers suffered while the cogs of the worker’s comp machine turned slowly, including denying approvals for surgeries on the day of surgery after a prolonged wait.
She described the healthcare providers available to the police officers at that time in the early 2010s as just prescribing pain meds and muscle relaxers, something she said was ineffective and not prudent for a police officer who must be alert when operating a city vehicle. She also recalled that the providers of the pre-Schweitzer and Simmons era were prone to misdiagnosis and tried to tell her she had arthritis when, in reality, she had broken a bone.
Sims contrasted this with the same-day care she receives for her work-related injuries at Southwest Sports and Spine. She said the doctors create effective treatment plans that make sense and “are good about going to bat for you [with the city bureaucracy].”
The police officer who spent decades in Narcotics Enforcement is afraid of what will happen to her and the others who depend on Southwest Sports and Spine for treatment after April 28.
She signaled dread that the bad ol’ days could be back for injured police officers on the worker’s comp system as it is currently unclear if anyone they view as comparable to the doctors at Southwest Sports and Spine will be available to them.