May an esthetician or laser technician perform microneedling in Virginia?
Oversight · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
The cited rules do not settle this — esthetics covers surface acts (cleansing, toning, exfoliating) with nonlaser devices and excludes anything that is the practice of medicine; microneedling is not named, so it turns on whether puncturing skin is medicine.
⚠️ Virginia settles this by definition rather than by naming the procedure. “esthetics is not a healing art and shall not include any practice, activity, or treatment that constitutes the practice of medicine, osteopathic medicine, or chiropractic.” The licensed acts are surface acts — “cleansing, toning, performing effleurage or other related movements, stimulating, exfoliating, or performing any other similar procedure on the skin” — and every device permitted is qualified as “any nonlaser device.” Microneedling is nowhere in the definition, so the question in Virginia is whether puncturing skin is the practice of medicine, not whether an esthetics license lists it.
Va. Code § 54.1-700 (definition of “esthetics”) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
Related Virginia rules
A doctor of medicine or osteopathic medicine may perform or supervise laser hair removal only on completing training in six named subjects: skin physiology and histology; skin type and appropriate patient selection; laser safety; operation of the laser device to be used; recognition of and response to potential complications; and a minimum of ten proctored patient cases with demonstrated competency in treating various skin types.
18 Va. Admin. Code § 85-20-91(A) · verified Sep 2, 2026
Doctors who were performing laser hair removal before 7 August 2019 are not required to complete that training. The rule grandfathers experience rather than requiring everyone to re-qualify — so the training file a practice holds may legitimately be empty for a long-serving physician and complete for a recent one.
18 Va. Admin. Code § 85-20-91(B) · verified Sep 2, 2026
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