Medical Direction
A physician licensed in your state serves as medical director of record, with real clinical authority over your service menu — not a name on a certificate.
What this includesMedical direction for medical spas
Your med spa is a medical practice. Run it like one.
Licensed physician oversight, good faith exams, written protocols and the documentation that holds up when a board, a carrier or a plaintiff's attorney asks for it.
Physicians licensed in your state
Protocols written for your menu
Documented chart review
Why this matters
Most med spas are non-compliant without knowing it
The business is usually built the way retail is built — hire talent, buy devices, fill the calendar. The regulatory layer underneath it tends to get assembled later, out of supplier templates and advice from other owners.
None of the problems below look like problems until the day someone asks for documentation. By then the fix is expensive, and the record is already written.
Get a written assessment- No good faith exam before treatmentPatients treated on a consultation that was never documented as a clinical evaluation, or never performed by anyone qualified to perform it.
- Protocols that describe someone else's practiceSupplier templates covering devices you do not own and treatments you do not offer.
- Delegation nobody wrote downStaff performing treatments their license may not permit in your state, with no record of training or authorization.
- A medical director in name onlyA signed agreement, a monthly fee, and no chart review, no protocols and no contact in eighteen months.
- An ownership structure that has never been testedA non-physician owner in a state that does not allow it, or a management agreement that gives the wrong party clinical control.
What we do
The full compliance layer, handled
Medical direction is the center of it, but a physician's signature only works if the infrastructure underneath is real. We build and maintain all of it.
Good Faith Exams
Every patient evaluated and cleared by a qualified practitioner before the first treatment — documented, timely, and filed to the chart.
What this includesProtocols & Standing Orders
A protocol manual written for your actual menu, your actual devices and your actual staff — signed by the medical director and kept current.
What this includesDelegation & Scope Review
A clear written answer, per person and per treatment, to the question that quietly creates the most liability in this industry.
What this includesChart Review & Quality Assurance
Scheduled physician review of patient records, with findings written down and corrective action tracked to closure.
What this includesTraining & Credentialing
Primary-source license verification for every clinical staff member, plus the training record that makes each delegation defensible.
What this includesHow it works
Four steps, starting with the truth
We begin by telling you where you stand, in writing. Everything after that is construction.
Compliance review
We look at what you actually sell, who actually performs it and how it is actually documented — then compare that against the rules in your state. You get a written findings list ranked by exposure, not a sales deck.
Physician match
We identify a physician licensed in your state with genuine aesthetic-medicine experience, confirm licensure and standing at primary source, and introduce them to you before anything is signed.
Build the foundation
Medical director agreement, protocols and standing orders, delegation matrix, credentialing files, consent forms and emergency procedures — written for your menu and signed, not templated and filed.
Ongoing oversight
Scheduled chart review, quality assurance meetings with minutes, staff training, availability for urgent consultation, and an annual re-review whenever your state's rules or your service menu change.
Who we serve
Aesthetic and wellness practices of every size
From a single treatment room adding injectables to a multi-state group opening its next location.
Injectable & Aesthetic Practices
Neuromodulators, dermal fillers, biostimulators and thread lifts — the highest-scrutiny corner of the industry, where delegation limits are tightest and vascular complications are the defining clinical risk.
Laser & Energy-Based Clinics
Laser hair removal, IPL, resurfacing, radiofrequency and microneedling devices — often regulated as medical treatment even where the marketing calls it a facial.
IV Hydration & Wellness
Vitamin and nutrient infusions, intramuscular injections and mobile or event-based services, including the pop-up and concierge models that regulators have started looking at closely.
Medical Weight Management
GLP-1 and prescription weight loss programs, where prescribing authority, compounded product sourcing and follow-up documentation carry real regulatory exposure.
Hormone & Longevity Medicine
Hormone optimization, peptide therapy and longevity programs — newer service lines where protocol discipline and honest patient communication matter most.
Multi-State & Expanding Groups
Practices opening a second, fifth or fifteenth location and discovering that what was compliant in one state is a violation in the next.
State by state
The rules change at the state line
There is no national med spa law. Ownership, injection authority, supervision levels, exam requirements and laser rules are each set by individual states — and they disagree with one another constantly.
A practice model that is entirely correct in one state can be unlicensed practice of medicine one state over. That is why we do not sell a national template: we start from the state you are actually in.
How state rules differWhat we confirm for your state
- Whether a non-physician may own the medical entity
- Which license types may inject neuromodulators and fillers
- Supervision level required for lasers and energy devices
- Whether a good faith exam is required, and by whom
- Whether telehealth satisfies the exam requirement
- What the medical director must document, and how often
Why spacompliance.com
Oversight built to be examined
Physicians who know aesthetics
Oversight from physicians with genuine experience in aesthetic and wellness medicine — people who can evaluate a laser setting or a filler complication, not generalists borrowing a title.
State-specific, not generic
Every protocol, delegation matrix and consent form is written against the rules of the state you operate in, and revisited when those rules change.
Documentation that survives scrutiny
The value of oversight shows up on the day someone asks for proof. Everything we build is designed to be produced on request — signed, dated and current.
Real clinical availability
A named physician reachable during treatment hours, with defined response times and a designated covering physician, written into the agreement.
Built for growth
Adding a service line or a location triggers a review before you commit, so expansion does not quietly create a violation.
Straight answers
If your model has a problem, we tell you in the first conversation. We would rather lose an engagement than sign off on something indefensible.
Questions
Straight answers
What is a medical director, and does my med spa actually need one?
A medical director is a licensed physician who takes clinical responsibility for the medical services a practice provides. In most states, the treatments that define a medical spa — botulinum toxin, dermal fillers, laser and energy-based procedures, intravenous therapy, prescription weight management — are the practice of medicine. A licensed practitioner has to order and supervise them, and a business owned or managed by non-physicians cannot supply that on its own.
Whether your specific menu requires a physician, and what that physician must do, depends on your state and on the licenses your staff hold. That is the first question we answer.
Is a medical director the same thing as putting a doctor's name on our paperwork?
No, and the difference is the whole point. Regulators and plaintiffs' attorneys both look for the arrangement where a physician collects a monthly fee, never sets foot in the practice, never reviews a chart and could not name the devices in the treatment rooms. That arrangement does not protect anyone.
Meaningful medical direction means signed protocols the physician actually wrote, documented chart review, real availability for consultation, and the authority to stop a treatment. That evidence is what stands up later.
What is a good faith exam and who is allowed to perform it?
It is the evaluation that has to happen before a patient is treated: history, examination of the treatment area, confirmation that the patient is an appropriate candidate, and authorization of a specific plan. Who may perform it — physician, nurse practitioner, physician assistant — and whether it may be done by telehealth varies by state and sometimes by treatment.
We confirm the rule for your state and build the exam into your booking process so it does not become the step everyone skips on a busy Saturday.
Can our registered nurse or esthetician inject?
It depends entirely on your state. Some states permit an RN to inject under physician delegation and supervision; others restrict injection to advanced practice providers or physicians. Estheticians are barred from injecting essentially everywhere, and medical assistants face tight limits — a point that surprises a lot of owners who inherited their staffing model from a previous employer.
We put the answer in writing, per person and per treatment, so nobody is guessing.
We already have a medical director. Why would we need you?
Often the arrangement is real but thin: a signed agreement with no protocols behind it, no chart review happening, no delegation matrix, no credentialing files, and no one tracking whether the state's rules changed last year. That is the common case, and it is fixable without replacing anyone.
We can work alongside your existing physician to build the missing infrastructure, or serve as medical director ourselves if you would rather change.
Find out where your practice actually stands.
A short, no-obligation review of your service menu, your staffing and your state's rules — and a clear written list of what is compliant, what is not, and what to fix first.