Georgia Practice Structure Guide: The Professional Corporation, the MSO and the Board's 2026 Supervision Position

Entity and Ownership

Georgia's professional corporation statute, in the version we could read, restricts shares to licensed persons actively engaged in practice, requires the practice to be rendered through licensed officers, employees and agents, and requires at least one director and the president to be licensed. Names must include a statutory phrase or abbreviation such as P.C. or P.A. The professional association under a separate chapter is different: an unincorporated association of licensed persons filed with the clerk of superior court, so a P.A. in Georgia is not a corporation. We use the corporation. The statute text we read came from copies last updated in 2016, so confirm current provisions, and we treated blog claims that all directors must be physicians or that the Board pre-approves the filing as unverified.

The Corporate Practice Position

A Georgia health law firm says the former express corporate practice prohibition was repealed in 1982, and that the doctrine now rests on licensure and ownership provisions. A Board rule still lists the old section among its authorities, so we treat the current status of that section as unresolved. The practice act makes it unlawful to maintain an office for treating patients without a license and makes it grounds for discipline to aid or encourage an unlicensed person or entity to practice, and to divide fees for referring a patient. We could not verify the Georgia cases that blogs cite and do not rely on them.

The Management Agreement and Fees

We found no Georgia statute or rule capping a percentage management fee, and no Georgia appellate decision on one. The fee-splitting ground is aimed at fees divided for bringing or referring a patient. The state's patient self-referral statute bars referrals for designated health services to an entity in which the provider has an investment interest, which matters if the management company owns related businesses. Board rules require treatment records for at least ten years from the last visit.

Georgia's restrictive covenant statute permits post-employment restraints on professionals, with a two-year presumption of reasonableness in the version we read. We did not check physician-specific amendments.

The Board's May 2026 Position Statement

On May 7, 2026 the Board issued a statement on IV hydration therapy that evaluates physician-APRN arrangements by substance and not form. It reads the bar on a physician being an employee of the APRN they supervise broadly, to include compensation of any kind from an APRN or APRN-owned company, and says a third-party matching or management company does not cure the problem if the APRN is paying for the physician in substance. It sets documentation duties for delegating physicians and public posting of the supervising physician. After public concern the Board said in June that the statement creates no new law, is not terminating active protocols and will inform how it reviews protocol agreements.

The statement is limited to APRN and PA arrangements. It does not address a physician-owned practice that pays a management company, but it shows the direction of scrutiny, and it is a strong reason to keep the clinic physician-owned.

Med Spa and Aesthetic Rules

Georgia has no med spa facility license. A Board rule makes it unprofessional conduct to delegate injection of botulinum toxin or dermal fillers to medical assistants. APRN delegation follows the practice act and Board rules, and the 2026 rule updates reportedly set a combined limit of eight APRNs and PAs per physician. A cosmetic laser act licenses laser practitioners. The Board's executive director reportedly testified in June 2026 that unannounced inspections found unlicensed workers and no physician oversight and that the Board plans to seek legislation limiting and registering med spas and IV facilities.

How We Structure It

As a rule we set up a professional corporation owned by the licensed physician, with no exceptions for what looks like a more flexible state. Patients pay the physician-owned practice. The practice pays the management company a fixed monthly fee under a written management services agreement. The management company pays MedGrid a fixed monthly retainer for consulting. The MSO never practices medicine, and the physician makes every clinical decision. In Georgia the supervising physician is paid by the practice, never by a nurse practitioner or a third-party matching company.

Disclaimer

This article is general educational information, not legal advice. Entity and corporate practice rules change, and parts of this summary rest on secondary sources, so have health care counsel in the state confirm the structure before you form or sign anything.