Med Spa Licensing & Policy Requirements

Medical spas are more popular than ever. Before opening your own med spa and experiencing success, you’ll need to know which med spa licensing requirements apply to you. Knowing the regulations and required facility licenses will safeguard your investment from regulatory risks. It can also help you stand out as a reputable practice.

To help with the success of your med spa opening or ensure the compliance of your current business, here’s a look at how these different rules apply to you.

Navigating Med Spa Compliance

State medical boards are increasingly pushing for new compliance rules for the med spa industry, hoping to increase client safety. The main legal conflict arises from the Corporate Practice of Medicine (CPOM) doctrine. It’s enforced in many states and prohibits nonphysician entities or corporations from practicing medicine. It also prohibits them from hiring physicians to practice.

For med spa owners, this means you can’t just hire a doctor and direct their client care decisions. You’ll need to structure your business entity to align with the regulations, with all medical decisions made by licensed professionals only.

Who Can Own a Med Spa?

Determining who can own a med spa depends on your state and its CPOM laws. The Doctor-Only Rule applies to states like California and Texas, which strictly enforce CPOM. Here, all medical entities treating clients must be 100% owned by a physician or a physician-owned professional corporation. In these jurisdictions, a nonphysician can’t legally hold shares in the clinical practice.

Can an RN Open a Med Spa?

Registered nurses (RNs) can’t own a medical practice without physician oversight. However, for nurse practitioners (NPs), the answer depends on the state and their classification under the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) consensus model:

• Full practice authority: NPs can diagnose and prescribe independently. In some of these states, an NP can legally own the practice.
• Reduced/restricted practice: NPs need to have a collaborative agreement or be supervised by a physician to provide care.

Regardless of ownership, every medical spa must have a medical director. This is a licensed physician who oversees medical protocols and delegates procedures. They don’t necessarily need to be the owner, but they need to have a formal legal relationship with the practice.

The MSO Model: How Nonphysicians Can Legally Own a Med Spa

In strict CPOM states, nonphysician entrepreneurs often use the Management Services Organization (MSO) model to enter the market. This structure helps you to comply with state regulations while controlling the business assets. The MSO model splits the business into two legal entities:

1. The medical entity: This is a professional corporation (PC/PLLC) owned exclusively by a physician. This entity holds client records and hires clinical staff. It also performs the medical practice.
2. The MSO: This is a limited liability company (LLC) owned by you, the investor. The MSO owns real estate and equipment. It also owns the branding and software.

A management services agreement (MSA) bridges these entities. Under this type of contract, the MSO can provide the administrative services at a med spa, like marketing and payroll, in exchange for a management fee. This lets nonphysicians profit from the operational success of the spa without them illegally practicing medicine.

What Med Spa Licensing Do You Need to Open a Medical Spa?

There are different types of med spa licensing you might need to open your medical spa, depending on your practice:

• General business license: This is the standard operating permit required by your municipality.
• Fictitious name permit (DBA): A DBA might be required if your professional corporation operates under a consumer brand name rather than the legal name of the corporation.
• Biomedical waste permit: A biomedical waste permit is mandatory for disposing of needles and regulated medical waste.
• Retail/reseller permit: You’ll need to get a retail or reseller permit in order to collect and remit sales tax if you sell skincare products at your med spa.

Med Spa Licensing for Staff & Scope of Practice Rules

When it comes to your service providers, you’ll need to make sure everyone operates only within their scope of practice:

• Injectors and medical staff: Neuromodulators, like Botox and fillers, are prescription medications. They can only be administered by licensed professionals, like medical directors and NPs. The person needs to hold an active medical or nursing license in order to have legal authority to inject these medications.
• Estheticians vs. medical procedures: Estheticians are licensed to treat the epidermis using noninvasive techniques. In most states, they are prohibited from performing medical lasers or injections, unless formally delegated by a physician.
• The Good Faith Exam (GFE): Federal and state laws state that a physician or mid-level practitioner (NP/PA) must examine a client at the med spa before that person receives medical treatment. An RN or esthetician can’t clear a client independently. MeevoMD supports this with customizable templates for intakes and consent forms that can be automatically sent at booking. It saves all compliance data directly to the client’s profile.

How to Open a Med Spa While Ensuring Compliance

Maintaining compliance should be part of your everyday tasks. You’ll need to implement certain policies to meet med spa requirements:

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): As a covered entity under HIPAA, all of your client photos and intake forms need to be stored in a system that meets federal security standards. Platforms like MeevoMD can make this process easier, giving you peace of mind that your client data is protected and secure. The software is 100% HIPAA compliant, meeting all industry standards.
• Med spa licensing tracking: With a diverse team, tracking license expiration dates is critical. Letting an employee practice even one day past their expiration date exposes the business to a huge liability.
• Protocol manuals (SOPs): Every treatment performed needs a written standard operating procedure (SOP), signed by your medical director. The SOP outlines your treatment steps and emergency protocols, the primary defense in a board investigation. MeevoMD’s med spa charting & Image Annotation capabilities lets providers map injection sites directly on client photos, while Visit Note Approvals ensure every chart is reviewed and signed off by a medical director before it’s finalized.

Protect Your Med Spa with MeevoMD

While meeting regulatory compliance can seem daunting, there are ways to streamline these tasks for your med spa’s success. Make your practice management software the backbone of your compliance strategy. MeevoMD provides a fortress for your data, being fully HIPAA compliant for privacy, as well as Payment Card Industry (PCI) and System and Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2) compliant to securely store financial and business records of all kinds.

MeevoMD offers customizable digital intake forms to capture client history before every appointment, helping you meet GFE requirements. We also offer solutions to manage your employees, letting you track employee certifications and licenses so you know when a license is about to expire.

MeevoMD is more than a digital, secure appointment system. It’s a full practice management tool that makes running your med spa more seamless than ever. Book a demo today.