DPF’s Actions & Patient Stories
The Doctor Patient Forum takes formal action to expose and challenge policies that harm pain patients. We call attention to forced tapers, patient abandonment, and the untracked harms of opioid reduction or elimination, ensuring these issues stay in front of policymakers.
Since federal agencies aren’t tracking these outcomes, DPF gathers and analyzes this evidence, securely and de-identified, so it’s available for qualified researchers. By combining lived experience, verifiable data, and published research, we make these harms visible to policymakers and impossible to ignore.
Below are our official petitions, testimony, and comments submitted to federal agencies and regulators, along with the surveys and questionnaires where patients and providers can share their stories.
Patient Abandonment and Forced Opioid Taper Questionnaire
We’re collecting secure, de-identified data from patients who:
- Were on daily opioid therapy for pain and were abruptly cut off from their prescription,
- Lost their provider and were unable to find a new one willing to continue treatment,
- Are currently being forced to taper, or
- Were tapered down to a lower dose than before.
Please do not complete this form if you lost your provider but found a new one at the same dose, or if you voluntarily began a taper.
Share Your Story
We are actively collecting stories from patients, providers, and loved ones impacted by opioid reduction policies. Your experience can help expose harm, educate policymakers, and drive meaningful change.
Unlike the Forced Taper Questionnaire, this is a more general survey for anyone affected by opioid reduction policies, including any aspect of pain care access, prescribing restrictions, or stigma related to treatment.
Please fill out the form below to share your story securely.
Prefer to open the form in a new tab? Click here to access the form directly.
Table of recent studies and statistics regarding chronic pain and opioids
Printable table of recent studies, research, and statistics showing overdoses, rate of addiction, PDMP use, etc. (useful when speaking to legislators, media, doctors, etc.)
Updated 5/12/25
Thedoctorpatientforum.com/ Resources/DPFResearchand Documents
Table of Recent Studies, Research, Statistics
FDA Citizen Petition on NarxCare (2025)
DPF filed a Citizen Petition urging the FDA to regulate NarxCare as a Software as a Medical Device (SaMD). We highlighted how the black-box risk scoring system drives forced tapers, patient abandonment, and denial of care. We called for transparency, validation, and federal oversight to prevent further harm.
The Opioid Risk Tool (ORT): Weaponization and Updated Guidance
In 2017, a physician denied Bev pain treatment based solely on her history of childhood trauma, citing the Opioid Risk Tool (ORT) as justification. That experience sparked DPF’s investigation into how the ORT has been misused to discriminate against patients—particularly women and survivors of abuse.
In response, DPF worked with Dr. Lynn Webster, the creator of the ORT, to highlight the dangers of the original version and promote the validated updated ORT, which removes the sexual-abuse question and improves reliability. We continue to urge hospitals, agencies, and EHR vendors to replace the outdated tool with the revised version to prevent further harm.
For the full story and detailed analysis, please visit our Patreon.
Comment on CDC’s 2022 Opioid Prescribing Guideline
DPF urged the CDC to address the harm caused by its 2016 guideline, including forced tapers and patient abandonment, and to begin tracking the unmeasured harms of opioid reduction. Read our comment
Protecting Pain Patients in FDA’s PMR Review (Comment 1, 2025)
In comments submitted ahead of the May 5, 2025 FDA meeting, DPF urged the agency to ensure transparency in opioid safety studies, warned against mislabeling stable patients with OUD, and called for research on the harms of forced tapering and abandonment.
Protecting Pain Patients in FDA’s PMR Review (Comment 2, 2025)
In a follow-up comment ahead of the May 5, 2025 FDA meeting, DPF pushed back on PROP’s proposals to relabel stable patients as having OUD, highlighted conflicts of interest, and urged the FDA to protect access for patients on long-term opioid therapy while studying the real harms of forced tapers and abandonment.
Comment on DEA Deregulation Request (2025)
DPF called for rescinding or revising 21 CFR §1306.04(a), the rule that lets DEA decide whether a prescription is for a “legitimate medical purpose.” We argued this vague standard fuels patient abandonment, contradicts the Supreme Court’s Ruan decision, and criminalizes ethical prescribing, leaving millions without care.
Petition to Amend SUPPORT Act Reauthorization (2025)
Together with chronic pain advocate Andrea Anderson, DPF petitioned Congress to amend H.R. 2483 so the FDA’s opioid benefit-risk report would also evaluate the harms of tapering and discontinuation. We warned that ignoring outcomes like suicide, overdose, disability, and loss of function could have dire consequences for stable chronic pain patients.
Comments at FDA/DEA Demand Forecasting Meeting (Aug 27, 2025)
At a joint meeting on controlled substance forecasting, DPF leaders Brandy (1:34:42), Claudia (1:40:10), and Bev (1:49:26) each delivered oral comments about how drug shortages destabilize pain patients. In just three minutes each, we described the real harms of shortages, from unmanaged pain to patient abandonment, and urged federal agencies to account for these impacts when setting quotas.