Scope check
Who may lawfully perform this, in this state?
Checked against the rule the state actually wrote down — quoted, cited, and linked at source. This compares a procedure against a published limit; it is not a judgement about what a treatment does to skin, and it is not legal advice.
Our scope corpus holds rules read at source for 51 states across 9 service categories. Coverage is uneven and we show you which you are in on every answer. Where we have not read a rule we say so — we never treat our silence as the state's permission.
Rhode Island · Chemical peel · Rule on record
We have read and cited this state's own rule for chemical peel. The verdict below rests on that text, linked at source so you can verify it.
RI requires delegation by, or an order from, a prescriber; the practice provides no supervision.
Rhode Island’s Medical Spas Safety Act (effective June 30, 2025) lists chemical peels as cosmetic medical procedures. An RN in a medical spa may perform one only when a supervising physician, PA or APRN has delegated it, the RN has the training, and the service is within nursing scope; the medical director oversees procedures performed by RNs. It governs medical spas only.
- The rule permits the procedure, but not with the supervision actually available.
What must be in place
- Requires delegation or a prescriber order
The rule this rests on
(4) “Cosmetic medical procedure” means any procedure that does not require sedation that is performed on a person and is directed at improving the person’s appearance and does not meaningfully promote the proper function of the body or prevent or treat illness or disease. Cosmetic medical procedures may include, but are not limited to, microneedling, hair transplants, cosmetic injections, cosmetic soft tissue fillers, dermaplaning, dermastamping, dermarolling, microdermabrasion, chemical peels, laser resurfacing, laser treatment of veins, sclerotherapy, other laser procedures, intense pulsed light, ablative laser, permanent fat removal, radio frequency microneedling, platelet-rich plasma, platelet-rich fibrin, and the use of class II medical devices designed to induce deep skin tissue alteration.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-105-1(4) · verified 2026-09-28 · read at source
(d) Non-physicians, non-PAs, and non-APRNs may only perform cosmetic medical procedures: (1) For which they have the requisite training; and (2) Which have been delegated to them by a supervising physician, supervising PA in collaboration with a physician or supervising APRN.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-105-2(d) · verified 2026-09-28 · read at source
(5) Responsible for the oversight of all cosmetic medical procedures performed by physicians, PAs, APRNs, and RNs;
R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-105-2(a)(5) · verified 2026-09-28 · read at source
A cosmetic medical service shall be performed by a delegate only if the services are within the scope of the delegate and have been delegated by a medical director, supervising physician, supervising PA, or supervising CNP who is responsible for supervision of the services performed.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 23-105-1(4) · verified 2026-09-28 · read at source
MedSpaRadar is regulatory monitoring and reference: it summarizes public laws, regulations and agency actions and links each to its source. It is not legal, medical, or compliance advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. A summary can lag its source or leave out detail, and monitoring itself can be interrupted — so an absence of alerts means nothing reached you, not that nothing happened. Read the cited source, check its effective date, and confirm any change to your operations or clinical practice with qualified health-law counsel and your medical director.
Where the corpus is deep, and where it isn’t
Read this before you rely on a quiet answer. A category with few states behind it is a category where we will more often tell you we don’t know — which is the correct answer, and not the same as a green light.
| Procedure | States with a rule on record |
|---|---|
| Injectable (neuromodulator, dermal filler) | 46 |
| Energy device (laser, IPL, RF, plasma, ultrasound) | 39 |
| Microneedling / collagen induction | 38 |
| Hair removal (laser / IPL) | 35 |
| Chemical peel | 34 |
| Micropigmentation / permanent makeup | 34 |
| Mechanical exfoliation (dermaplaning, microdermabrasion) | 33 |
| Sclerotherapy | 29 |
| Body contouring (cryolipolysis, RF, ultrasound) | 17 |
Every rule behind these answers is read at an official source and cited. The wider cited corpus — supervision, good-faith exams, ownership and CPOM, advertising — lives on the state pages, and how we decide what to publish is written down in the methodology.
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