I am a registered nurse here in California. I do a very limited amount of non-surgical cosmetic treatements in my office. I do them all myself but I was wondering how valuable getting an esthetician would be. Should I consider hiring an esthetician? I've been receiving a lot of applications.

I guess it depends on the P&L of your office.

*You* can only see a set amount of patients and it may make sense to add another person to delegate the services that don't require your RN license to perform (micros, facials- whatever else your state mandates) and having someone else can free up your schedule while theycan grow that pat of the business.

I would pay an esti a flat rate with a set amount of hours whether they have clients or not- have them use this time to market their services if there is no business at first.

Make sure you have a business plan figured out well in advance of hiring someone with monetary goals figured out for your new hire. As your business picks up you could consider adding bonuses for additional revenue produced.

Make sure your medical director is on board and maybe you could pick up some patient referrals from them too.

BetterOffNow, thanks for the input. Can you share your experiences working with an esthetician? Have you seen an increase in profits?

I am not an RN but do some consulting as well as run a medspa now. I have worked with Plasti's who are looking to add the medspa aspect to their practice and worked with them to hire and train estheticians.

Right now, I work primarily with esti's as laser techs. I have one that is bringing in 20-30K per month extra by upselling additional services to the existing patient base- but she is highly unusual in her motivation. I look for about 8-10K extra per esti, and reward them with a high hourly, and a % of total office revenue (not profit- it gets too confusing to explain that I had to pay the electric bill before their bonus)

Again it really depends on your office. How have you determined that there is a need for an esthetician's services? Have you polled your existing patient base? Has anyone asked you about it? Do you offer laser, micros and chem peels? if yes- who does them now? Could you delegate anything you do now to an esti? Therefore freeing up your valuable time to provide more services that only an RN can perform which will translate into more $$$ for everyone.

You have to look at your #'s, and talk to your patients.

if i were you, i wouldn't hire one. they can steal your patients! i hired one a couple of months ago. wasn't aware that she was planning to build her own practice and entering my clinic would be her jump start. she was doing under the table treatments. she was profiting from extra laser treatments and botox injection touch ups. estheticians have never been a profit source in my practice. they say goodbye after learning the tricks of the trade.