For referring providers
We take on the taper. You keep the patient.
What we can do for a patient you send us, what we cannot, who holds the prescription while the taper runs, how to refer, and what comes back to you.
HIPAA-compliant intake, records and messaging.
Tapering is a job with no schedule attached
You already know which of your patients should be coming off a long-term opioid, benzodiazepine, z-drug, gabapentinoid, antidepressant or proton pump inhibitor. Deciding is not the hard part. Running the reduction is.
A taper is a long sequence of small dose changes with clinical contact between each one. That is refill authorisations that cannot slip, dose adjustments that depend on how last week went, and calls in the weeks between appointments — a workload that does not fit a fifteen-minute slot booked three months out.
Inside those fifteen minutes sits the call nobody wants to make: is this withdrawal, or is the original condition returning? A 2022 systematic review of 21 clinical practice guidelines by Sørensen and colleagues found that 15 recommended tapering gradually or slowly, and none gave guidance on dose reductions, on distinguishing withdrawal from relapse, or on managing withdrawal symptoms. We wrote that evidence gap up in full, and it shapes how we run antidepressant tapers in particular.
The third problem is what happens if the taper never starts. Stopping a prescription without a plan does not remove the risk; it moves it. The patient either stays on the medication for another year or comes off it unsupervised.
What we take on
Three things move to us the day you refer. Nothing else does.
For the duration of the taper we hold the prescription for the medication being reduced. Refills, dose changes and the schedule are ours to run, which takes the between-visit authorisations off your desk.
Your patient is seen every one to four weeks and logs symptoms in between. When a step is too hard we hold it or make the next one smaller — a call made by a provider watching the taper, not squeezed into an unrelated appointment.
Progress updates through the taper and a written summary at discharge, so the reduction is documented in the record you keep. The patient relationship stays yours throughout.
Scope
What we can and cannot do
The boundary matters more than the pitch, so here it is before you refer.
- Taper the six classes we treatOpioids, benzodiazepines, z-drug sleep medication, gabapentinoids, SSRIs and SNRIs, and proton pump inhibitors.
- Prescribe the medication being taperedWe hold the prescription for the medication being reduced, for the duration of the taper. Refills and dose changes come from us.
- Manage the taper between your visitsDose adjustments, pacing, symptom logging, and provider contact when the patient needs it rather than when the calendar allows.
- Report back to youProgress updates through the taper, and a written summary at discharge covering what was reduced, over what period, and where the patient finished.
- Continue by telehealth after intakeFollow-ups are routinely remote. Whether the intake can be depends on the medication and on where the patient lives — ask us.
- Take over other prescriptionsWe hold only the medication being tapered. Everything else the patient takes stays with you.
- Treat opioid use disorderBuprenorphine and methadone programs are a different service from a taper. If that is what the patient needs, we will say so and help you find it.
- Manage acute withdrawal or a crisisA patient in withdrawal now needs urgent care or an emergency department today, not a scheduled intake.
- Become the primary or psychiatric careWe do not take on primary care, and we do not start or switch psychotropic medication.
- Guarantee full discontinuationThe goal is the lowest dose the patient can hold well. Sometimes that is not zero, and we will not push past it to reach a number.
- Practise outside our licensed statesLicensing decides where a provider can see a patient. Ask us before you refer from out of state.
How a referral works
Four steps, and only the first one is yours.
Send the referral
Send patient demographics and contact details, insurance information, any recent notes, the medication to be tapered, and the referring physician.
We check coverage and book the intake
We verify insurance or self-pay and contact the patient to book the intake. Patients can also reach us directly without a referral — when the referral comes from you, we start with your notes rather than from scratch.
Intake and the written schedule
About an hour, in South Portland or by telehealth: medication history, health, previous attempts to stop, and what the patient wants the outcome to be. Their provider writes a dose-by-dose schedule, and we take over prescribing the medication being reduced.
Updates through the taper, summary at discharge
You receive progress updates while the taper runs and a written summary when it ends. If something falls outside our scope, you hear it from us early rather than at discharge.
What the program has produced
These figures come from Prescriby's dedicated tapering clinic in Iceland, run in 2024–2025 in partnership with Iceland's Ministry of Health. The US clinic in Maine uses the same care model; its own outcome data is not yet published.
Iceland clinic cohort, 2024–2025.
Iceland clinic cohort, 2024–2025.
Iceland clinic cohort, 2024–2025.
Referring provider questions
We do, for the medication being reduced, and only for the duration of the taper. Having the prescriber and the taper schedule in the same place removes the monthly refill negotiation that makes tapering harder than it needs to be. Every other medication your patient takes stays with you, unchanged.
No. The primary relationship stays with you. We run one defined piece of clinical work — the reduction of one medication — and hand it back when it is finished, with a written summary of what was reduced, over what period, and where the patient finished.
Progress updates while the taper runs, and a written summary at discharge covering the medication, the schedule that was followed, the final dose and what to watch for afterwards. Confirm the update cadence with us when you refer — it depends on the medication and on how long the taper is expected to run.
Six classes: opioids, benzodiazepines, z-drug sleep medication, gabapentinoids, SSRIs and SNRIs, and proton pump inhibitors. Each class has its own page covering generic and brand names, the long-term effects that make a reduction worth considering, the withdrawal profile, and how we run the taper. If your patient is on a medication outside those six, ask us before you refer rather than assuming the answer is no.
Get in touch and we will tell you plainly whether we can take the patient on. Where a provider can treat someone by telehealth depends on state licensing, so the answer is specific to where your patient lives rather than to where your practice is.
All communication and record-keeping is HIPAA compliant, from the referral itself through to the discharge summary. Please keep protected health information out of the general contact form and send it through the secure referral form, encrypted email or the fax line instead. Your patient's taper record is available to them in the Prescriby app throughout.
Refer a patient, or ask us first
Send the referral and we verify coverage, contact your patient to book the intake, and write the schedule. You will have the first progress update before you would otherwise have had the follow-up appointment.
Not sure the patient fits? Ask before you refer. We would rather tell you now than three visits in.