Pennsylvania medical director requirements for med spas
Medical-director, supervision, and delegation requirements for aesthetic practices. Below are the Pennsylvania rules that govern it, each linked to its primary source.
Physician supervision & delegation in Pennsylvania
On the medical side Pennsylvania delegates by TEST rather than by list: seven conditions, all of which must hold before a physician delegates a medical service to a health care practitioner or a technician — with a separate standing-protocol route for emergencies. The cosmetology side is the opposite shape, and it is a list: the board’s definition of esthetics names massaging, applying preparations, hair removal by tweezers or wax, and eyelash work, with no depth or penetration language anywhere in it.
A medical doctor may delegate the performance of a medical service to a health care practitioner or a technician only where the delegation is consistent with the standards of acceptable medical practice embraced by the medical doctor community in Pennsylvania, and where it does not violate any other statute or regulation governing the person receiving it.
49 Pa. Code §18.402(a) · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute
The delegating physician must confirm the person receiving the delegation has the education, training, experience and continued competency to perform it safely, must determine there is no undue risk to that particular patient, and assumes responsibility for the delegated service.
49 Pa. Code §18.402(a) · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute
The nature of the service and the fact that it is being delegated must have been explained to the patient, and the patient must not object. Pennsylvania puts the patient’s awareness of who is treating them inside the delegation test itself rather than leaving it to consent paperwork.
49 Pa. Code §18.402(a) · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute
A physician may approve a standing protocol delegating medical acts to another health care practitioner who encounters a medical emergency, to stabilize the patient until the physician or emergency medical services personnel are available to attend.
49 Pa. Code §18.402 · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute
Aiding or abetting an unlicensed person to practice, and permitting an unlicensed person to perform activities requiring a license, are listed acts of unprofessional conduct for which the Board may discipline.
49 Pa. Code §16.61 · verified Aug 17, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute
Pennsylvania’s definition of esthetics was read in full and describes surface work only. It is “the practice of massaging the face, applying cosmetic preparations, antiseptics, tonics, lotions or creams to the face, removing superfluous hair by tweezers, depilatories or waxes, eyelash perming and the dyeing of eyelashes and eyebrows”, and “the term includes the use of industry standard mechanical and electrical apparatus and appliances in the practice of esthetics.” The apparatus clause carries no depth or penetration language, and nothing in the definition describes puncturing skin. An absence in this definition.
49 Pa. Code § 7.1 (definition of “Esthetics”) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · read at Cornell Legal Information Institute
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