Each and every week we get at least several new IV hydration, nutritional therapy and weigh management types of clients coming to us for legal advice.

Hi, I’m Michael H Cohen, founding attorney at Cohen Healthcare Law Group; we help healthcare companies navigate legal challenges so they can grow or scale their healthcare venture.

Our biggest legal tip for an IV hydration venture or medical spa is to structure the overall venture so as to separate the clinical from the business operation.

The way to do this is to have a Professional Medical Corporation (as we said over and over) to house the physician, nurses, and clinical personnel; and an MSO or management services organization to house the management and marketing people, or arm of the business.

Then, have healthcare legal counsel draft an MSO Agreement that sets the terms of the arrangement, and provides as much control as possible to the party we are representing, whether that is the professional medical corporation or the doctors, or the MSO. We can draft this in favor of whichever one you choose.

A well-drafted MSO Agreement can help reduce the risk of fee-splitting and anti-kickback concerns as well as corporate practice of medicine enforcement risks.  At the end of the day, clinical decisions have to be made by medical doctors and their clinical staff, while the MSO can handle all the management and marketing.

Our second tip is that the MSO fee has to be at fair market value and in some states, like California, this could be a percentage of gross revenues received by the IV hydration clinic or medical spa.  That allows the MSO to scale at the same rate as the underlying clinical practice – good for revenue.

Please come to us with your questions, just go to our contact page. We look forward to seeing you soon.