Must someone be on site while a patient is treated in Ohio?
Oversight · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
Yes — for a vascular laser delegated to a nurse, the physician must provide on-site supervision at all times the device is being applied, and may supervise no more than two such delegates at the same time.
For a vascular laser the physician must provide on-site supervision at all times the nurse is applying it, and may supervise no more than TWO such people at the same time. This is the cap that applies to vascular work only — hair removal has its own, and it is higher.
Ohio Admin. Code 4731-18-03(A)(8) and (A)(9) · verified Sep 1, 2026 · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
Related Ohio rules
For hair removal the default is on-site supervision — the physician physically in the same location, though not necessarily the same room. Since HB 377 took effect on 26 August 2026 there is an OFF-SITE pathway: the physician need only be continuously available for direct communication, but only for an ESTABLISHED patient, and only where the delegate has qualified for it.
Ohio Rev. Code §4731.33(F)(1), (F)(2), (G)(1), (G)(2); definitions at (A)(6) and (A)(7) · verified Sep 1, 2026
Qualifying for off-site supervision differs by delegate. A laser hair removal professional must have completed a physician-approved course of at least fifty hours, of which at least thirty were clinical, and must have worked under that physician’s on-site supervision long enough for the physician to be satisfied they are competent unsupervised. A nurse must have completed a physician-approved training program of forty total hours, which may be run internally at the facility or by a third party overseen by a physician. Both must keep the documentation.
Ohio Rev. Code §4731.33(F)(2) and (G)(2) · verified Sep 1, 2026
How other states answer this
- Alabama
- Alaska
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- Delaware
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- Georgia
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- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
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- Missouri
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
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- Virginia
- Washington
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← All Ohio 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).