New York ownership & cpom for med spas

Ownership & corporate practice of medicine in New York

New York is a strict corporate-practice state. Only a licensed person may practice medicine or use the title “physician”, and a Professional Service Corporation may be organized only by individuals authorized to render that same service. ⚠️ The separate EMPLOYMENT offense has a count in it — knowingly aiding or abetting THREE OR MORE unlicensed persons, or employing them. Fee-sharing is separately misconduct, subject to named exceptions including an authorized professional subcontractor or consultant and a supervised trainee.

• Only a person licensed or otherwise authorized under the Education Law’s medicine article may practice medicine or use the title “physician.”

  N.Y. Educ. Law §6522 · verified Aug 17, 2026

• A professional service corporation may be organized only by one or more individuals duly authorized to render the same professional service, and for the purpose of rendering that same service. Its certificate of incorporation must name the original shareholders, directors and officers and carry certificates from the licensing authority that each of them is authorized to practice the profession.

  N.Y. Bus. Corp. Law §1503 · verified Aug 17, 2026

• Anyone not authorized to practice who practices, offers to practice, or holds themselves out as able to practice a profession requiring a license — or who AIDS OR ABETS an unlicensed person to practice — is guilty of a class E felony. This first paragraph carries no numeric threshold: aiding one unlicensed person is enough, and it is the provision that reaches a lay-owned business directing clinical work.

  N.Y. Educ. Law §6512 (first paragraph) · verified Sep 1, 2026

• ⚠️ The separate EMPLOYMENT offense has a count in it. Knowingly aiding or abetting THREE OR MORE unlicensed persons to practice, or employing or holding such unlicensed persons out as able to practice a profession requiring a license, is a class E felony. The number is part of the rule: below three, the employment paragraph is not the charge — the aiding-and-abetting paragraph above still is.

  N.Y. Educ. Law §6512 (second paragraph) · verified Sep 1, 2026

• ⚠️ New York’s fee rule is written as a list of who may share, and a non-clinical owner is not on it. Professional misconduct includes “permitting any person to share in the fees for professional services, other than: a partner, employee, associate in a professional firm or corporation, professional subcontractor or consultant authorized to practice medicine, or a legally authorized trainee practicing under the supervision of a licensee.” Every permitted sharer is inside the practice or licensed to practice medicine.

  N.Y. Educ. Law § 6530(19) · verified Sep 2, 2026

• ⚠️ and the statute names the MSO structure by its mechanics. “this prohibition shall include any arrangement or agreement whereby the amount received in payment for furnishing space, facilities, equipment or personnel services used by a licensee constitutes a percentage of, or is otherwise dependent upon, the income or receipts of the licensee from such practice.” Percentage rent, a percentage staffing fee and a percentage management fee are the three things a med spa MSO usually charges, and this sentence reaches all three by their form.

  N.Y. Educ. Law § 6530(19) · verified Sep 2, 2026

• Separately, paying for the patient is its own ground: “Directly or indirectly offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving or agreeing to receive, any fee or other consideration to or from a third party for the referral of a patient or in connection with the performance of professional services.”

  N.Y. Educ. Law § 6530(18) · verified Sep 2, 2026