By: Alex R. Thiersch, JD, Founder/Director of the American Med Spa Association (AmSpa)

Med spa law can often be a maze of state and federal regulations, crossed with a litany of regulatory board opinions and years of case law that can differ widely from state to state. However, although the business is complicated, understanding the following five pieces of advice can help you tremendously.

Medical spas are medical facilities.

You may be forgiven for thinking that medical aesthetic facilities operate under the same set of regulations that govern the non-medical facilities with which they are often associated like day spas and retail centers. However, medical spas are medical facilities and must be operated as such. This is the most important piece of advice a health care attorney can give medical spa professionals who are operating medical spas.

Understand your corporate structure.

Because medical spas are medical facilities, their corporate structures are more important than you might think. The regulations governing medical practices in most states recognize the "corporate practice of medicine," which states that medical practices must be owned by physicians or physician-owned corporations. This can impact several aspects of medical spa ownership, including the next piece of advice.

See AmSpa's webinar on the MSO structure for information on owning a med spa if you are not a doctor, and if you live in a state that recognizes the corporate practice of medicine.

Do not reward employees with commissions.

In states that observe the corporate practice of medicine, payment for medical services must be made in full to the owner of the practice—a physician or physician-owned corporation. If a practice rewards employees for bringing in clients with a percentage of their payments, it would constitute fee-splitting, which is often illegal in these states. You can, however, reward employees with a structured bonus system, such as the compensation plan available in the AmSpa store.

A medical professional should always be onsite.

It's fairly uncommon that the physician who owns or operates a medical spa is actually in the building. However, proper delegation and supervision must be practiced at all times. A physician is typically allowed to delegate day-to-day activities to other medical professionals, and having a mid-level practitioner—a nurse practitioner or physician assistant—onsite to supervise the non-licensed employees who typically administer treatments helps to keep the practice safe from lawsuits that may arise from accusations of improper care.

For more information on medical malpractice lawsuits, listen to Medical Spa Insider Episode 3, in which AmSpa Founder/Director Alex Thiersch interviews patient advocate law firm Sukhman|Yagoda on tips to avoid being sued by patients.

Consult a health care attorney as soon as possible.

Even though it might seem cost-prohibitive when you're opening a medical spa, it is in your best interest to engage a health care attorney as soon as possible. An experienced lawyer can advise you about the numerous issues that can hamstring an aesthetics practice, including helping you create contracts that conform to your state's laws. For example, if you want to craft an enforceable non-solicitation clause for an employee contract, a health care lawyer can help you with that. An attorney can also help you understand how best to utilize marketing tools, such as social media and how to make sure that you respect patient privacy at all times. It's often said that it costs twice as much for an attorney to fix a problem than it would to prevent that problem from occurring in the first place, so make sure to consult a health care lawyer as soon as you get a chance, if you haven't already.

(AmSpa members: Be sure to take advantage of your complimentary annual compliance consultation with the business, aesthetic, and healthcare law firm of ByrdAdatto. Additionally, AmSpa members should be sure to access their medical aesthetic state legal summary to find answers to their med spa legal questions.)

If you run a medical spa practice, there's a high probability that you're going to get sued—there's really no way around it. However, if you heed the advice presented here, you will help to protect yourself from potentially disastrous consequences.

For more information on medical spa legal necessities, and to gain the tools to run your practice efficiently and profitably, attend an AmSpa Medical Spa & Aesthetic Boot Camp, and be the next med spa success story.