Montana Advertising Rules for Med Spas and Health Practices
A sourced brief on Montana's advertising standards for licensed health practices. Every rule below was verified against the Montana Code Annotated, administrative rules, or official board publications, with the source and check date listed. Nothing here is legal advice.
Verified against Montana Board of Medical Examiners sources, 2026-07-02
Educational summary for practice owners. Not legal advice.
False or misleading advertising (all licensed professions)
Montana regulates healthcare advertising primarily through its uniform licensing statute rather than profession-by-profession ad codes. MCA 37-1-316 makes it unprofessional conduct for any licensee to engage in a misleading, deceptive, false, or fraudulent advertisement or other representation in the conduct of the profession. It separately covers signing or issuing, in a professional capacity, a document or statement the licensee knows or reasonably ought to know contains a false or misleading statement. This single standard reaches physicians, nurses, dentists, chiropractors, and the other Title 37 professions.
MCA 37-1-316, Unprofessional Conduct checked 2026-07-02
Medical board posture: no standalone physician advertising code
The Board of Medical Examiners' own unprofessional conduct rule, ARM 24.156.625, was repealed effective August 6, 2022. Since that repeal, physician and physician assistant advertising discipline in Montana rests on the uniform statute, MCA 37-1-316, not on a board-specific advertising rule. Practices should not expect a Montana equivalent of the detailed ad codes some states publish; the general misleading-advertisement standard is the operative test.
ARM 24.156.625 (repealed 8/6/2022) checked 2026-07-02
Dental advertising and referral payments
The Board of Dentistry's unprofessional conduct rule prohibits using advertising matter that contains misstatements, falsehoods, misrepresentations, or wording that may reflect against a fellow licensee or other licensed health care provider. It also prohibits knowingly suppressing, omitting, or concealing any fact or law without which the advertisement would be deceptive or misleading, which reaches fine-print and omission-based offers. The same rule bans accepting or tendering rebates or split fees, defined as commissions paid to others for referral of business.
ARM 24.138.2301, Unprofessional Conduct (Board of Dentistry) checked 2026-07-02
Med spa ownership and holding out as a licensed provider
Montana's boards state in a joint-format FAQ that medical spa is not defined by statute or rule, that med spas as facilities are not regulated by the professional licensing boards, and that a person not licensed by any professional licensing board may own a medical spa. The same guidance states it is illegal to impersonate or falsely advertise as a licensed physician or nurse, and that if a spa offers medical procedures or injectables, a qualified health care provider must provide or appropriately supervise those procedures and must prescribe the injectables. Marketing that implies physician or nurse involvement the practice does not actually have sits directly on this line.
Montana Board of Nursing Med Spa FAQ checked 2026-07-02
Who may perform the services you advertise
The state's med spa FAQ states that laser hair removal constitutes surgery under ARM 24.121.1509(7) and is prohibited for cosmetology-board licensees, and that administering injectables such as Botox is not within the scope of any licensee under the Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists. Procedures that compromise the germinative or basal layers of the skin are likewise prohibited for those licensees. An ad promoting laser or injectable services performed by estheticians, rather than by or under a qualified health care provider, advertises unlicensed practice.
Montana Med Spa FAQ (Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists, 01/2024) checked 2026-07-02
Nurse delegation and supervision in cosmetic practice
The Board of Nursing's med spa FAQ states that RNs and LPNs with appropriate training, education, and supervision may inject prescribed medications as part of a medical treatment plan but may not prescribe treatments or diagnose, while APRNs in Montana have full practice authority to prescribe and perform services within their scope. A nurse may delegate nursing tasks only within the delegating nurse's area of responsibility, scope, and competency, retains professional accountability for the delegated task, and is directed to ARM 24.159.1611 for delegation requirements. Advertised service menus should match this staffing reality.
Montana Board of Nursing Med Spa FAQ checked 2026-07-02
Chiropractic fees, discounts, and referral payments
The current chiropractic unprofessional conduct rule prohibits charging a patient a clearly excessive fee or charging for services not rendered, charging different fees to insurance companies and patients, and giving or receiving money for referring patients, known as fee splitting. Note that an older version of this rule contained an explicit subsection on misstatements in advertisements; the rule was amended effective June 2024 and that language no longer appears, leaving chiropractic advertising governed by the general MCA 37-1-316 standard. Discount promotions that create a patient price different from the insurer-billed price implicate the fee provisions.
ARM 24.126.2301, Unprofessional Conduct (Board of Chiropractors) checked 2026-07-02
What this means by practice type
Med spas
Non-licensee ownership is permitted, but the boards' published guidance makes the advertising exposure explicit: it is illegal to impersonate or falsely advertise as a licensed physician or nurse. Copy that says medical-grade, physician-directed, or nurse-administered should be literally true of the people delivering the service, and injectable and laser offers should reflect that a qualified provider performs or supervises the procedure and prescribes the product.(Montana Board of Nursing Med Spa FAQ)
Dental
Montana dentistry has the state's most specific ad rule. Beyond false statements, ARM 24.138.2301 treats omission as deception: leaving out a fact without which the advertisement would be misleading is itself unprofessional conduct, so limited-time offers and new-patient specials need complete terms. The rebate and split-fee ban also constrains paid referral arrangements with third parties.(ARM 24.138.2301)
Chiropractic
Since the 2024 amendment removed the profession-specific advertising subsection, chiropractic ad claims are tested under MCA 37-1-316's general misleading-advertisement standard. The surviving fee rules matter for promotions: advertised discounts cannot produce a patient charge different from what is billed to a third-party payer, and referral payments in either direction are fee splitting.(ARM 24.126.2301)
Longevity and GLP-1
GLP-1 and hormone programs marketed online are practice of medicine, and Montana's telemedicine rule holds remote prescribers to the same standard of care as in-person settings, including verifying identity and credentials to the patient and taking a history sufficient for diagnosis. Weight-loss outcome claims in ads fall under the MCA 37-1-316 misleading-advertisement standard; the published rules do not set a specific substantiation test, so claims should track what the evidence and the individual treatment plan support.(ARM 24.156.813, Telemedicine Practice Requirements)
Telehealth posture
ARM 24.156.813 requires that a licensee using telemedicine to treat patients in Montana adhere to the same standards of care required for in-person medical care settings. A provider-patient relationship may be established through an in-person interview and examination when the standard of care requires one, through consultation with another licensee who has a documented relationship with the patient, or through telemedicine if the standard of care does not require an in-person encounter. Before providing care, the licensee must make identity and credential verification available to the patient, verify the patient's identity, and obtain a medical history sufficient for diagnosis and treatment.
ARM 24.156.813, Practice Requirements for Physicians and Physician Assistants Using Telemedicine checked 2026-07-02
Common questions
Can a med spa advertise discounts or promotional pricing in Montana?
The board rules we verified do not directly address discount advertising for medical or nursing licensees. Any promotion still has to clear MCA 37-1-316's ban on misleading, deceptive, false, or fraudulent advertising, and for dentists ARM 24.138.2301 treats omitting a fact that makes the ad misleading as unprofessional conduct, so offer terms should be complete. Chiropractors face specific fee rules, including a prohibition on charging different fees to insurers and patients.
Are patient testimonials and before-and-after photos allowed in Montana?
The published Montana statutes and board rules we reviewed do not address testimonials or before-and-after photos directly. They are evaluated under the general standard in MCA 37-1-316: a testimonial or image becomes a problem when it functions as a misleading, deceptive, false, or fraudulent representation, for example by implying typical results that are not typical or credentials the provider does not hold.
Who can own a med spa or wellness practice in Montana?
Montana's licensing boards state in their med spa FAQs that a person not licensed by any professional licensing board may own a medical spa, since the boards regulate licensees rather than facilities. The conditions are firm: it is illegal to impersonate or falsely advertise as a licensed physician or nurse, and if the facility offers medical procedures or injectables, a qualified health care provider must perform or appropriately supervise them and must prescribe the injectables.
Marketing that survives your board
The free growth audit includes a compliance read of your current site and ads against your state's advertising rules.