Tennessee medical director requirements for med spas
Medical-director, supervision, and delegation requirements for aesthetic practices. Below are the Tennessee rules that govern it, each linked to its primary source.
Physician supervision & delegation in Tennessee
Tennessee treats a laser procedure as the practice of medicine and requires the person performing it to be under a physician’s supervision, while its definition of aesthetics covers surface work only. For a fully licensed physician assistant it writes out what supervision means — not continuous presence, but available for consultation at all times, with a protocol reviewed every two years. A PA on a TEMPORARY license is outside that rule and may not provide services at all unless a supervising physician is on site.
⚠️ a laser procedure is the practice of medicine. Any procedure encompassed within the definition of the practice of medicine that is to be performed BY USE OF A LASER shall be considered the practice of medicine, and any person performing such a procedure must be under the supervision of a licensed physician — subject only to the narrow exceptions the rule cross-references for other licensed professions.
Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0880-02-.14(10) · verified Sep 2, 2026
Supervision of a physician assistant DOES NOT require the continuous and constant presence of the supervising physician — but the physician must be available for consultation at all times, or must arrange for a substitute physician to be available. The supervising physician and any substitute must hold a current, unencumbered Tennessee license.
Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0880-02-.18(1) and (2) · verified Sep 2, 2026
⚠️ and the supervisor must know the field. a supervising physician or substitute shall have experience and/or expertise in the same area of medicine as the physician assistant. A physician of the wrong specialty is not a lawful supervisor however available they are.
Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0880-02-.18(3) · verified Sep 2, 2026
Protocols are mandatory and have a maintenance schedule: they shall be jointly developed and approved by the supervising physician and the physician assistant, shall outline and cover the applicable standard of care, shall be reviewed and updated biennially, and shall be maintained at the practice site.
Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0880-02-.18(5) · verified Sep 2, 2026
A physician assistant holding a TEMPORARY license — one waiting to take the licensure examination — may not provide services at all unless a supervising physician is ON SITE while the services are being provided. The general no-continuous-presence rule does not reach them.
Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0880-02-.18(4) · verified Sep 2, 2026
Only the non-living, uppermost layers of facial skin, known as the epidermis, may be removed, and only for the purpose of beautification. Skin removal techniques and practices which affect the living layers of facial skin, known as the dermis, are prohibited. Only commercially available products may be used, and mixing or combining skin removal products is prohibited except as required by manufacturer instructions. Licensed aestheticians may use alphahydroxy acid salon exfoliation products that do not exceed thirty percent (30%) concentration. Such products should have a pH of 3.0 or above.
Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0440-02-.16 (rev. Dec 2025) · verified Aug 29, 2026
Tennessee’s definition of aesthetics was read in full and is three surface practices. “aesthetics” means “massaging, cleansing, stimulating, manipulating, exercising, beautifying or similar work with hands or mechanical or electrical apparatus or by the use of cosmetic preparations, antiseptics, tonics, lotions or creams”; “placing or applying artificial eyelashes”; or “giving facials, applying makeup, giving skin care or removing superfluous hair by tweezing, depilatories or waxing”. No act of puncturing appears, and the apparatus clause sets no depth. An absence in this definition, not a finding that Tennessee prohibits microneedling.
Tenn. Code Ann. § 62-4-102(a)(1) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · read at FindLaw Codes
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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.