Georgia medical director requirements for med spas
Medical-director, supervision, and delegation requirements for aesthetic practices. Below are the Georgia rules that govern it, each linked to its primary source.
Physician supervision & delegation in Georgia
Georgia licenses the people who operate cosmetic lasers, in two tiers, and requires the facility to have a consulting physician behind them. Separately, a physician delegates medical acts to a nurse by written protocol or to a physician assistant by a board-approved job description.
An assistant laser practitioner may perform cosmetic laser services under the supervision of a Board-licensed physician or a licensed senior laser practitioner. A senior laser practitioner may perform cosmetic laser services and may supervise assistant laser practitioners performing them.
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 360-35-.05 · verified Aug 17, 2026
A consulting physician must be licensed in Georgia, have a principal place of business in Georgia or practice within 50 miles of the facility supervised, be trained in laser modalities (physics, safety, technique, indications, pre- and post-operative care, and treating complications), and be available for emergency consultation. The consulting physician establishes the protocols for the cosmetic laser services provided at a facility and files those protocols with the Board.
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 360-35-.06 · verified Aug 17, 2026
An assistant laser practitioner license is open to someone holding a current license as a physician assistant, licensed practical nurse, nurse, esthetician, or master cosmetologist (or who previously held a license or certificate as a medical practitioner), who is 21 or older and holds at least three Board-approved laser/IPL course certificates taught by a licensed physician or a certified CME/CE educator.
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 360-35-.02(2) · verified Aug 17, 2026
A senior laser practitioner license requires a current physician assistant or nurse license (or a previously held medical practitioner license), at least three years of clinical or technological medical experience, three years of licensure or national board certification as a medical practitioner, verification of licensure from every state where the applicant has held one, and at least two Board-approved laser/IPL CME certificates.
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 360-35-.02(3) · verified Aug 17, 2026
Outside the laser rules, a physician delegates by one of two written instruments: a nurse protocol — a document mutually agreed and signed by a nurse and a licensed physician, delegating authority to perform certain medical acts including administering and ordering drugs — or a physician assistant job description approved for that assistant by the Board.
O.C.G.A. §43-34-23 · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at FindLaw Codes
✅ Georgia excludes medical aesthetics from the esthetics license by name, in the definition itself. After listing the four practices an esthetician may perform, the statute closes: “Such practices of esthetics shall not include the diagnosis, treatment, or therapy of any dermatological condition or medical aesthetics or the use of lasers.” Few states name “medical aesthetics” as a category and put it outside the license; Georgia does.
O.C.G.A. § 43-10-1(8) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · read at FindLaw Codes
And the four permitted practices are surface work with no depth permission anywhere in them: “Massaging the face, neck, décolletage, or arms”; “trimming, tweezing, shaping, or threading eyebrows”; “dyeing eyelashes or eyebrows or applying eyelash extensions”; and “waxing, threading, stimulating, cleansing, or beautifying the face, neck, arms, torso, or legs of an individual by any method with the aid of the hands or any mechanical or electrical apparatus or by the use of a cosmetic preparation.” The apparatus clause is broad as to instrument and silent as to depth — the depth limit comes from the medical-aesthetics exclusion, not from this list.
O.C.G.A. § 43-10-1(8)(A)–(D) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · read at FindLaw Codes
Except for physician offices, all facilities providing cosmetic laser services other than hair removal must have a senior laser practitioner or consulting physician present at the facility or immediately available for consultation and supervision, either personally or via telecommunications, and must post a sign listing the consulting physician's name, emergency contact number, board certification and principal place of practice and indicating whether he or she is presently on site at the facility.
Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 360-35-.07(1)(d)–(e) · verified Sep 8, 2026
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