It seems that some medspa physicians think the sky is falling.

Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting at the Utah State Capital Building at which a bill was begin pushed forward by DOPL, the Utah Department of Licensing, and an individual physician who runs a medical spa in order to try and prevent anyone except a physician from performing a treatment, i.e. actually pushing the button. The physician had a presentation, which to be honest, had been fairly impressive to the uninitiated in which he touted New Jersey's strict law to this regard as a benchmark by which Utah should be held. (Read Florida's new regulation of medical skin center practices thread here.)

This doctor runs a cosmetic medical practice and medical spa in which he performs physically all of the treatments including laser hair removal. He presented a dangerous picture of gloom and doom.

For those of you in this business, you know how inane and boring laser hair removal can be. My guess is that he became the lackey on this with a staff member from DOPL just because he doesn't have as much patient flow. There is absolutely no way a successful practice can work if the physician is the one pushing the one for every bikini line, under arm, and leg hair removal treatment. It cannot be done.

New Jersey proves the case and point; as soon as they passed this law which was passed because of course they had no regulation and a few people got burned at which point they over reacted. It meant that hair removal then became so costly (because the physician had to perform every treatment) that nobody could afford to get it done. everybody just drives across the river to New York.

I am willing to bet my last dollar that 90% of my non-physician staff has more knowledge of hair removal and has performed more treatments than this physician. We have never had a major complication or burn, we have never been sued and we have treated 10's of thousands of patients in five clinics over the last seven years.

This is an example of where physicians can be completely short sided and states can over react. This physician, who is just an individual guy with one laser pushing the button all by himself feels the need to campaign and save everybody by forcing them to adopt his business model. It will not work; it hasn't worked, it will never work. It is however, dangerous to real clinics since it could force them out of business at a stroke.