Before you sign a med spa or wellness client

The question most med spa funnels skip is basic: who legally owns the clinic. In many states the corporate practice of medicine doctrine holds that only a licensed physician or a professional corporation may own a medical practice and control clinical decisions, so a non-physician who owns a med spa outright with a doctor signed on as a paper medical director is often the violation, and the marketing that drives patients in can become evidence of the arrangement. Fee-splitting rules run alongside: a percentage-of-revenue management fee, or paying the marketing partner a cut of each treatment sold, can be an illegal kickback under state law even where federal statutes do not reach. Strictness varies by state, so confirm the entity structure before you design a single offer.

Med spa advertising answers to two bosses at once: the state medical board and the FTC. Boards treat false, misleading, or unsubstantiated advertising by a licensee as grounds for discipline, which lands on the physician owner but takes your campaign down with it. The FTC layer is where most copy breaks: any claim that a treatment is clinically proven, medically shown, or backed by studies is an establishment claim, and the FTC expects it to rest on competent and reliable scientific evidence, generally randomized, controlled human trials. Its 2022 Health Products Compliance Guidance is explicit that testimonials, before-and-after photos, and glossy citations do not stand in for that evidence. If the client cannot hand you the study, the copy cannot say proven.

Offers are the other reliable way a med spa funnel gets a client in trouble. The FTC's guide on the word free says a free or two-for-one offer is honest only when the regular price of the paid item is genuine, not marked up to cover the giveaway, and its terms and expiration are disclosed clearly rather than buried. A "free consultation" that is really a high-pressure sales appointment reads as bait, and struck-through prices that were never charged or countdown timers that reset are deceptive-pricing problems under the same body of law.

Weight-loss and GLP-1 marketing carries its own live exposure, and the ground moved recently. The FDA resolved the tirzepatide shortage in December 2024 and the semaglutide shortage in February 2025, pulling away the shortage exemption that had let compounding pharmacies mass-produce cheaper copies. Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, compounders generally may not make a drug that is essentially a copy of an approved product, so "generic Ozempic" and bulk compounded semaglutide sit on far shakier ground than in 2024. Advertising these drugs by brand, with price comparisons or unqualified safety claims, invites FDA and FTC attention and can run into state pharmacy and telehealth rules, so treat it as counsel-required.

Get clean answers before you sign the med spa or wellness client, because each maps to a liability you would otherwise inherit. Confirm who owns the practice and whether the structure satisfies your state's corporate-practice and fee-splitting rules; that your fee is a flat amount rather than a percentage of treatments or revenue that could read as a kickback; that for every clinically-proven or results claim the client can produce the underlying evidence; that the free and discount offers disclose real regular prices, full terms, and honest expirations; that a pharmacist or lawyer reviews any GLP-1 or compounded-drug claims in scope; and that a licensed physician is actually accountable for the clinical claims the ads will make. A med spa that answers cleanly is a good account; one that cannot is asking you to carry risk that belongs to the practice.

Read the way a regulator would, a single med spa line can carry the offer problem and the claim problem at once.

Pre-Trip is a rigorous screen, not legal advice. Counsel decides; we help you arrive prepared.