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Florida medical director requirements for med spas

Medical-director, supervision, and delegation requirements for aesthetic practices. Below are the Florida rules that govern it, each linked to its primary source. Monitoring and reference, not legal advice.

Physician supervision & delegation in Florida

Florida regulates cosmetic procedures through the physician’s duty to supervise and to delegate only to qualified people.

  • Delegating professional responsibilities to a person the physician knows (or should know) is not qualified by training, experience, or licensure is a disciplinable offense.

    Fla. Stat. §458.331(1)(w) · verified Jul 26, 2026

  • Aiding, assisting, procuring, or advising an unlicensed person to practice medicine is a ground for discipline against the physician.

    Fla. Stat. §458.331(1)(f) · verified Jul 26, 2026

  • Florida does not require a physician on the premises during every treatment — it regulates the ALTERNATIVE. Where an advanced practice registered nurse or physician assistant works at an office other than the supervising physician’s primary practice location and is NOT under that physician’s onsite supervision, §458.348(3) imposes a set of standards, and a med spa falls inside them: the subsection reaches practices providing primarily dermatologic and skin care services, which it says expressly include aesthetic skin care services.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(3) · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • ⚠️ THE SUPERVISING PHYSICIAN MUST BE A DERMATOLOGIST OR PLASTIC SURGEON. Where the office is not the physician’s primary practice location, the nurse or assistant is not under onsite supervision, and the services are primarily dermatologic or aesthetic skin care other than plastic surgery, the physician must be board certified or board eligible in dermatology or plastic surgery as recognized by the Board under §458.3312. This is a qualification on the person, not a paperwork step, and no protocol cures its absence.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(3)(c)2. · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • And the arrangement is capped by geography and by count. Every such office must be within 25 miles of the physician’s primary place of practice or in a contiguous county, and no two of the offices may be more than 75 miles apart. The physician may supervise ONLY ONE office other than their primary place of practice, and must submit the addresses of all of them to the Board.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(3)(c)1., 3. and 4. · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • Where the physician is not always present, the practice must say so on the wall: a physician supervising an office in addition to their primary practice location must conspicuously post in each office a current schedule of the regular hours the physician IS present, and the hours the office is open while the physician is NOT. A patient is entitled to know which of those they walked into.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(3)(d) · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • Laser and light-based hair removal is carved OUT of that regime and handed a stricter one. Any protocol for electrolysis or electrology using laser or light-based hair removal or reduction by a person other than a physician must require that person to be appropriately trained and to work only under the DIRECT supervision and responsibility of a physician licensed under chapter 458 or 459.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(2) · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • There is one narrow exit, and it is narrower than it looks. Neither the direct-supervision rule in (2) nor the offsite-supervision standards in (3) apply to an office at which the EXCLUSIVE service performed is laser hair removal by an advanced practice registered nurse or physician assistant. Add any other service — a neurotoxin, a filler, a peel — and the exemption is gone, because it is written on the office, not on the procedure.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(3)(e) · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • A physician who takes a referral must, before the initial examination, ensure the patient is told what license the physician holds and what license any other practitioner treating them holds; the patient chooses which of them to see and signs a form recording that choice. The supervising physician must then review the record of that initial examination and send a written report to the referring practitioner within 10 business days.

    Fla. Stat. §458.348(4) · verified Sep 1, 2026

  • A medical assistant may perform defined clinical tasks — including administering medications and giving injections — only under the direct supervision and responsibility of a physician.

    Fla. Stat. §458.3485 · verified Jul 26, 2026

  • When an office procedure rises to the level of surgery, it is classified by anesthesia level (Level I–III), and the physician is responsible for being appropriately qualified and for the personnel assisting.

    Fla. Admin. Code r. 64B8-9.009 · verified Jul 26, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute

  • ⚠️ FLORIDA WRITES THE MEDICAL EXCLUSION INTO THE DEFINITION OF COSMETOLOGY ITSELF. “COSMETOLOGY” MEANS “THE MECHANICAL OR CHEMICAL TREATMENT OF THE HEAD, FACE, AND SCALP FOR AESTHETIC RATHER THAN MEDICAL PURPOSES”. The facial specialty is no wider: “FACIALS, OR THE MASSAGING OR TREATING OF THE FACE OR SCALP WITH OILS, CREAMS, LOTIONS, OR OTHER PREPARATIONS, AND SKIN CARE SERVICES.” So in Florida the question is not whether microneedling is listed — it is whether the treatment is for a medical purpose, which the license does not reach either way.

    Fla. Stat. § 477.013(4), (6)(c) · verified Sep 2, 2026

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