Can a non-physician own a med spa in Colorado?
Ownership · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
Not directly — it is unprofessional conduct for a physician to practice as the partner, agent, or employee of, or in joint venture with, an unlicensed person or any corporation other than a professional service corporation for the practice of medicine.
⚠️ Colorado names the corporate practice of medicine doctrine in its statute and expressly refuses to let its own professional-corporation provisions be read as an exception to it. Ownership sits with licensed physicians; a PA may hold shares only while physicians keep MAJORITY ownership; and lay directors are barred from touching medical judgment.
Drawn from 7 verified rules in this section · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-121(1)(g)(I) · Sep 2, 2026
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-121(1)(g)(II)(B) · Sep 2, 2026
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-138(1)(a)–(b) · Sep 2, 2026
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-138(1)(d)(I) · Sep 2, 2026
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-138(1)(f) · Sep 2, 2026
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-138(1)(e) · Sep 2, 2026
- Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-132(2) · Sep 2, 2026
Related Colorado rules
It is unprofessional conduct to practice medicine “as the partner, agent, or employee of, or in joint venture with, any person who does not hold a license to practice medicine within this state”, or as an employee of or in joint venture with “any corporation other than a professional service corporation for the practice of medicine as described in section 12-240-138.” The general-business-corporation med spa employing its own physician is the arrangement this forecloses.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-121(1)(g)(I) · verified Sep 2, 2026
⚠️ and the statute names the doctrine, which almost no other state does. “nothing in this subsection (1)(g) shall be construed to otherwise create an exception to the corporate practice of medicine doctrine.” In most states the doctrine is inferred from the licensure requirement and argued about; in Colorado it is written down, and the professional-corporation route is expressly not a way around it.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-121(1)(g)(II)(B) · verified Sep 2, 2026
How other states answer this
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Related Colorado questions
- What limits does Colorado place on a med spa's business structure?
- Can private equity invest in a med spa in Colorado?
- In Colorado, may a non-clinical owner or manager be paid a share of revenue?
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← All Colorado rules and changes · 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. Legislative data via LegiScan (CC BY 4.0).