Driving through strip malls in cities nationwide, residents are seeing a new kind of storefront: medical spas. According to AmSpa’s 2024 industry report, 1,589 med spas opened in 2023, raising the national total from 8,899 to 10,488 – a 17.86% jump that nearly doubles the 2018 figure of 5,431. In practical terms, a new med spa opened roughly every 5.5 hours last year.
Growth of the industry vs. growth of clinicians
The rapid expansion of med spas is not matched by the supply of licensed clinicians who perform injectable and other aesthetic treatments. Federal employment data shows that nurse practitioner (NP) and physician assistant (PA) employment grew only 6.70% in 2023 across all of healthcare, far slower than the med‑spa boom.
Skin Clique Academy, an injectable‑training program, combined national med‑spa counts, federal employment figures and Certified Aesthetic Nurse Specialist (CANS) certification data to illustrate the mismatch. In 2023, just 60 nurses passed the CANS exam for the first time, while 1,589 new med spa clinics opened.
Revenue and patient volume are also rising
Injectables drive much of the growth; as of 2021, 94% of med spas offered facial injections. The average med spa recorded 283 aesthetic patient visits per month in 2022, and average revenue per location reached $1.4 million in 2023. AmSpa estimates the broader medical‑aesthetics industry generated $17 billion in annual revenue.
Med spas approaching McDonald’s density
A 2026 report in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal projects roughly 13,000 med spas in the United States by year‑end, a number that could soon rival the count of McDonald’s restaurants nationwide. At the state level, Florida already has about 2.5 times more med spas than McDonald’s locations, underscoring how mainstream aesthetic medicine has become.
Clinician‑to‑spa ratios
Workforce data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in 2022 there were 22.3 med spas for every 1,000 clinicians. By 2023 that ratio rose to 24.6 med spas per 1,000 clinicians, according to Skin Clique Academy’s analysis. The competition for qualified clinicians now includes hospitals, urgent‑care centers, dermatology practices and other med spas.
Certification bottlenecks
From 2019 through 2023, only 260 nurses earned the CANS credential for the first time, while more than 5,000 med spas were added nationwide. Although pass rates were high—90% in 2022 and 95% in 2023—the number of exams administered fell 28% from 2022 to 2023, with just 65 exams given in 2023. The CANS certification is voluntary; physicians, NPs, PAs and RNs can provide injectable treatments without it.
Future employment outlook
Projections for 2025‑2035 anticipate a 41% increase in NP employment and a 21.1% rise in PA employment, adding roughly 173,500 new jobs. However, most of that growth is driven by broader healthcare demand, not specifically by aesthetic medicine. Opening a med spa can take only a few months, while training and certifying new clinicians takes years.
The disparity between the rapid opening of med spas and the slower growth of the qualified workforce highlights a looming challenge for the industry and for patients seeking safe, professional aesthetic care.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
