New Jersey medical director requirements for med spas

Physician supervision & delegation in New Jersey

Two rules meet here and they must not be confused. Lasers are swept into the definition of SURGERY for the office-surgery rules. The separate delegation rule addresses physical modalities, and it gives an unlicensed aide a list of exactly five — hot packs, cold packs, paraffin baths, contrast baths and whirlpool baths. Nothing on that list is a cosmetic device.

• For the purposes of the office-surgery rules, surgery means a manual or operative procedure, including the use of lasers, performed upon the body to preserve health, diagnose or treat disease, repair injury, correct deformity or defect, prolong life or relieve suffering.

  N.J.A.C. 13:35-4A.3 · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute

• An unlicensed aide may administer exactly five physical modalities: hot packs, cold packs, paraffin baths, contrast baths and whirlpool baths. No other modality — including TENS or traction — may be delegated to an unlicensed aide, and an aide may not carry out a rehabilitative exercise program.

  N.J.A.C. 13:35-6.14(d) · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute

• The doctor must determine every component of the precise treatment for the present session — the modality, the extent of the area treated, the length of treatment and any factor peculiar to that modality’s risks, such as strict avoidance of certain parts of the body. That must be set down as a written order on the patient’s chart and be available at all times to the assistant carrying it out.

  N.J.A.C. 13:35-6.14(e)2 · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute

• The doctor must satisfy themselves as to the education, competence and comprehension of the particular assistant, who must be at least 18 years old, and must prepare and keep written documentation of the instructions given, signed by both the doctor and the aide. The aide must be identified in the patient’s chart.

  N.J.A.C. 13:35-6.14(e)3 · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute

• ✅ New Jersey draws the line at the stratum corneum, which is the layer microneedling is designed to cross. a cosmetology licensee shall not “perform or offer to perform massaging, cleansing or stimulating of the skin, with or without cosmetic preparations, by hand, mechanical or electrical appliances, below the stratum corneum, thereby affecting the living cells of the epidermis.” Doing so “shall be deemed to be engaged in unlawful practice pursuant to n.j.s.a. 45:5b-13(e)”.

  N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15(a), (b)(2) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute

• ⚠️ and the shop owner is on the hook too, not only the operator. “a holder of a shop license at which such unlawful practices occur shall be deemed to have engaged in unlawful practice … if he or she aids, abets, or permits a practitioner to engage in any conduct prohibited by this section.” The same rule separately bans use of “a credo blade, skin scraper, lancet, or other comparable implement.”

  N.J.A.C. 13:28-2.15(a), (b)(1) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute