Who may operate a cosmetic laser in Indiana?
Oversight · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
Only as the practice of medicine — a laser that cuts, burns, or vaporizes tissue is medicine, and it isn't in Indiana's closed esthetician list; the cited rules don't settle who may operate lasers that do none of those things, or the terms of any delegation.
The “practice of medicine” includes prescribing or administering any form of treatment and procedures that cut, burn, or vaporize tissue by mechanical means, laser, or penetration of the skin — the statutory basis for treating cosmetic injectables and energy-device procedures as medicine.
Ind. Code §25-22.5-1-1.1 · verified Jul 26, 2026 · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
The rest of what Indiana says on this
Indiana’s esthetician definition was read in full and is a closed list with a medical carve-out. An esthetician is “a person who engages solely in one (1) or more of the following practices”: “giving facials, applying makeup, and giving skin care”; “beautifying, massaging, or cleaning the body with the use of cosmetic preparations, antiseptics, tonics, lotions, or creams”; and removing superfluous hair “by the use of depilatories, waxing, or tweezers”. The term expressly “does not include performing any of the acts described in subsection (a)… in treating an illness or a disease” No act of puncturing appears — an absence in this definition.
Ind. Code § 25-8-2-9.5 · verified Sep 2, 2026
Each med spa must have a responsible practitioner (a physician, a qualifying APRN, or a PA with delegated prescriptive authority) with relevant training, who must be physically present enough to ensure compliance and must ensure every worker is licensed and trained for the services they perform.
Ind. Code §25-22.5-12.5-2, §25-22.5-12.5-5 (SEA 282, 2026) · verified Jul 26, 2026
How other states answer this
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
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- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Iowa
- Louisiana
- Maryland
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Related Indiana questions
- Does a med spa in Indiana need a medical director?
- May an esthetician or laser technician perform microneedling in Indiana?
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← All Indiana 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).