How to Open a Nurse-Owned Practice in Utah

You've done the math in your head more than once. A few injectable appointments on your day off, on your own schedule, in your own space, and suddenly the shifts you pick up out of obligation start to look optional. Utah has one of the youngest populations in the country and a Wasatch Front that keeps adding rooftops from Lehi to Ogden. Nurses here already know the demand is real; the question is what the state actually requires of you. (Already run your own practice? Skip ahead, there's a section below built specifically for you.)

The thing that stops most nurses in Utah was never the clinical work. You already do harder things on a Tuesday than a first tox or IV appointment will ever ask of you. What stops people is everything around it, the ownership rules, the medical director, the setup, all sitting there as one giant undefined to-do. So let's take it in order, starting with the question every Utah nurse asks first.

Can a nurse own an aesthetics, wellness, or functional health practice in Utah?

Yes, with the right setup. Utah names nursing as a profession that can form a professional services company (Utah Code §48-3a-1101(1)(h)), and the cosmetic procedure statute regulates who supervises, not who owns. It even defines a cosmetic medical facility as "a physician's office or a facility that has a supervisor" (Utah Code §58-1-505(1)(a)). One constraint: a professional services company may provide only one type of professional service (§48-3a-1106(1)), so your medical director sits under contract rather than inside your entity. Whether you can file a standard LLC instead is a question for your attorney.

The Utah rule that catches almost everybody

Utah wrote the med spa rulebook into statute, and it comes with numbers. When an RN performs a nonablative cosmetic procedure, which is where tox and filler live, the statute requires general supervision, meaning your supervisor "is located within 60 minutes or 60 miles of the cosmetic medical facility" and is available in person for a suspected complication (§58-1-506(1)(d), (3)(b)(ii)(A)). A supervisor in Salt Lake City covering a nurse in Cedar City doesn't work. It keeps going: the supervisor's license goes on your wall, their name gets posted, every patient gets written notice naming the supervisor and the injector, and every patient gets a phone number answered within 24 hours (§58-1-506(4)). Skip any of it and the statute calls that unprofessional conduct (§58-1-506(5)).

Utah doesn't say medical director. It says supervisor, and it defines that as a physician with an unrestricted license or an APRN with an unrestricted license (§58-1-505(1)(b)). An RN can't be the supervisor. Utah gave NPs full practice authority in 2023 through SB 36, with no collaborative agreement (Utah Code §58-31b-803), and as of January 1, 2026 the last physician-only wrinkle is gone: the old text shut NPs out of tattoo removal evaluations, and the current §58-1-506(3)(a) names physicians, NPs, and PAs with no carve-out. A physician supervisor and an APRN supervisor carry the same 60-mile leash.

Utah calls the initial patient evaluation an evaluation, full stop. Before a treatment protocol or series starts, the physician, NP, or PA must develop a treatment plan and "conduct an evaluation of the patient either in-person or utilizing a live telemedicine visit" (§58-1-506(3)(a)). That telemedicine option is new for 2026. Note the word live, because a questionnaire won't satisfy it. The evaluation isn't delegable to an RN, with one odd exception for hair removal reviews (§58-1-506(2)(c)).

One thing to keep straight: this framework is written for cosmetic purposes. IV therapy, vitamin injections, and GLP-1 protocols run on general Nurse Practice Act scope instead, so don't assume the 60-mile rule stretches to cover them.

How Five Square actually gets you started

The whole thing lives in one place: the free Five Square Nurses app. Your medical oversight, the step-by-step training, your pharmacy and vendor accounts, and the entire community of nurse business owners are all in there. You can open it between patients, on a lunch break, or on the couch at 9pm, and pick up right where you left off.

When you join, you're not handed a login and wished good luck. There's a Getting Started path that puts the order of operations right in front of you, so the mountain becomes a checklist.

You pick your lane, or combine them. Five Square supports three:

• Aesthetics. Tox and dermal filler, the core of a nurse-injector practice, with room to add more as you train.
• Wellness. IV therapy and vitamin injections. Low startup, very mobile-friendly, and a natural add-on to aesthetics.
• Functional Health. Peptides, lab work, and whole-person care for nurses who want longer-term, relationship-based patients.

You bring the nursing license and the nerve. We bring the medical director, the compliant Utah setup, the training, member pricing on products, marketing help, and weekly live calls with experts and other nurse owners, so you're never stuck guessing alone.

And every Five Square member, brand new or already established, gets instant on-demand Good Faith Exams for $19.99 each, a price we subsidize because we believe in nurse success. A walk-in can be cleared in about a minute, seven days a week, and the exam paperwork lands right in the patient's chart, which is exactly what a state board wants to see.

You start before you feel ready, and that's the point

Most programs make you wait. Watch every module, sit through every call, and someday you finally see a patient. By then half the people who started have lost momentum. Five Square runs the other way: you start your practice while you're still finishing the training, because the training sticks when there's a real patient on next week's calendar.

Kayla, an ER nurse in North Carolina, had never injected anyone when she joined. She watched the videos, took notes, and set a goal of 30 people in 30 days. Here's the advice she'd give a nurse who's scared to start:

"Believe in yourself, even when you don't know how to do something. Figure it out. The clinical knowledge from your nursing career is more than enough to get started, and there's a community of people around you who want to help. Do it scared."
- Kayla, ER nurse

She launched April 4. Her first month: 46 appointments, 28 good-faith exams, and $10,320 in revenue, run out of a single room inside a salon she'd been a client at for years. That's one real month from one real nurse, not a typical result and not a promise, and your market and hours are your own. The point is she was exactly where you are, never-done-this-before, and she started anyway.

Does it actually work once you launch?

Getting launched is step one. What you really want to know is whether it works after that. Here's the honest picture, numbers included, because income claims in this industry deserve a skeptical read.

Results vary, and they depend on things no membership controls: your market, your hours, how long you've been at it, how consistently you market. As practices mature, some established members report months in the $10,000 to $20,000 range. Individual results vary widely. Some land higher, some lower, and nobody here will promise you a number.

What's more useful is the math underneath, which is public. Neurotoxin appointments bring in $200 to $600. A syringe of filler runs $500 to $800. IV sessions run $150 to $350. Functional health consults run $150 to $300, often with patients coming back monthly. At those prices, two to four appointments a month would cover the $899 membership before product costs, and everything past that is the business growing. Want to see it with your own pricing? Run your numbers in the Five Square membership earnings calculator.

The nurses say it better than a revenue range does:

"I'm never going back to floor nursing. I didn't think making this income while still making it to all my kids' activities was even possible. Five Square made it easy."
- Lindsey K., RN

"Having my own schedule, that flexibility as a mom to say the kids are at school these hours, so I can see patients and make way more than I was making at the hospital."
- Ashley C., RN

Inside the community, the wins show up in real time. A nurse a few weeks into her launch posted she was already up to eight bookings, nearly all of it from one post in a local mom's Facebook group. Another saw a husband and wife for their good-faith exams in under ten minutes using the same-day exam tool when her director wasn't free. Scroll the forum any week and it's full of small wins like these.

The Google rating sits at 4.8 stars, and the reviews keep naming the same things: the setup help, the medical director, the training, and a team that answers when you're stuck.

Already run a practice in Utah? There's a membership for that too

Not every nurse reading this is starting from scratch. Plenty of you already run your own practice and already pay for a medical director somewhere. If that's you, a lot of what's above is stuff you sorted out a while ago, and Five Square has a leaner membership built for exactly your spot. In Utah, you can join whether you're just starting out or already running a practice.

It's called the Established Nurse Membership. It's $799 a month, month to month, no annual lock. You get a medical director who's actually engaged, a compliant structure in Utah, vendor and product pricing, the Five Square Nurse Community, and those instant on-demand Good Faith Exams at $19.99 each, a price we subsidize for our members because we believe in nurse success. There's no new-injector training folded in, because you don't need it and shouldn't pay for it. If you ever want the full education stack later, you can add it.

Here's the honest pitch. Most established practices are either paying $1,500 to $5,000 a month for a director who's genuinely involved, or a few hundred for one who signs protocols and disappears, which is its own risk when a board comes asking. For most nurses, $799 all in beats both, on price and on what you actually get. Tell us what you're paying now and we'll show you the side by side. No pitch, just the math.

What it costs, and the catch nurses look for

For a nurse starting out, membership is a flat $899 a month for one tier, $1,199 for two, $1,499 for all three, on a 12-month term. Startup beyond that is lighter than people expect: a starter tox order, insurance that runs well under most nurses' guesses, and the products you actually use. No revenue share, ever. (Already have a practice? The Established Nurse Membership above is $799 a month, month to month.)

That's usually the moment the skeptical part of your brain asks where the catch is. Fair. So, plainly: you own your practice and your patients through your own LLC. Five Square does not take a cut of what you make, and if a discovery call turns up that the honest answer for you is 'not yet' or 'start smaller,' the team will tell you that too.

So, where do you actually start in Utah?

You book the call. That's genuinely it. Not a six-month research project, a 15-minute conversation about your license, your goals, and what launching (or leveling up) in Utah would look like for you. Whether you're brand new or already running a practice, the whole reason Five Square exists is so you're not doing the hard parts alone.

Schedule a discovery call

Common questions about starting a practice in Utah

How close does my supervisor have to be in Utah?

For an RN performing tox or filler, Utah requires general supervision, which the statute defines as a supervisor who has authorized the procedure, is available in person to evaluate a suspected complication, and "is located within 60 minutes or 60 miles of the cosmetic medical facility" (Utah Code §58-1-506(1)(d)). That supervisor can be a physician or an APRN. If you're in St. George and your supervisor is in Provo, you don't have a compliant setup.

Can an LPN inject in Utah?

Only under direct supervision. When a practical nurse or an esthetician performs a nonablative cosmetic procedure, the supervisor has to be "present and available for a face-to-face communication" when and where it happens (Utah Code §58-1-506(1)(c), (3)(b)(ii)(C)). An RN gets the looser general supervision standard. So an LPN can be part of an injectable practice in Utah, and it means someone qualified as a supervisor is in the building for every appointment.

Can the patient evaluation be done by telehealth in Utah?

Yes, as of January 1, 2026. The statute now lets the physician, NP, or PA conduct the evaluation "either in-person or utilizing a live telemedicine visit" before treatment starts (Utah Code §58-1-506(3)(a), as amended by Ch. 491, 2025). Before that change, Utah required in-person. The visit has to be live, so store-and-forward intake or a form the patient fills out on their phone doesn't count.

Can a registered nurse own a med spa in Utah? Yes, with the right setup. Utah names nursing as a profession that can form a professional services company (Utah Code §48-3a-1101(1)(h)), and the cosmetic procedure statute regulates who supervises, not who owns.

Do I need a medical director for aesthetics in Utah? Yes. Utah requires oversight for medical aesthetic services, and every Five Square practice includes a medical director as part of the membership.

Can a nurse do Botox in Utah? Yes, within a compliant setup and with the oversight Utah requires. The clinical work is rarely the question; it's whether the practice around it is built legally.

I already run a practice in Utah. Can Five Square still help? Yes. The Established Nurse Membership is built for nurses who already have a practice: $799 a month, month to month, with a medical director, a compliant structure, vendor pricing, and $19.99 on-demand Good Faith Exams. No new-injector training you don't need, and no annual lock.

How much are Good Faith Exams? For Five Square members, simple Good Faith Exams are $19.99 each, on demand, seven days a week, a price we subsidize because we believe in nurse success. One exam can clear a patient for several treatments at once, and the documentation attaches right to the patient's chart.

Is Five Square available in Utah? Yes. Five Square already supports nurses in Utah, so a discovery call is about your timeline and your goals, not whether we're there yet.

How much does it cost to start? For a new nurse, membership is $899 a month for one tier, and startup beyond that (a tox order, insurance, products) is lighter than most nurses expect. If you already run a practice, the Established Nurse Membership is $799 a month, month to month. No revenue share either way.