MAY CHIROPRACTIC PHYSICIANS PERFORM MICRONEEDLING?

Yes, so long as certain conditions are met.

According to webMD.com, microneedling is a procedure that involves pricking the skin with a rolling tool containing tiny sterilized needles. The small wounds cause the body to make more collagen and elastin, which heals skin and helps the subject to appear younger. 

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The Medical Practice Act does not specifically address microneedling.  However, other laws and regulations provide guidance when considering whether microneedling is within chiropractic scope. 

Under the Medical Practice Act laser rules, chiropractic physicians are permitted to use devices that are not Class 3b and Class 4, intense pulsed light, radiofrequency and medical microwave devices that are intended to cut, excise, burn or vaporize the skin.  Additionally, the Barber, Cosmetology, Esthetics, Hair Braiding, and Nail Technology Act allows cosmetologists and estheticians to perform procedures on the stratum corneum layer of the skin.  The ICS believes a reasonable interpretation would permit a chiropractic physician to perform microneedling that does not go below the stratum corneum layer of the skin, because the procedure does not cut, excise, burn, or vaporize skin.  However, the ICS believes that regulators would deem that microneedling devices designed to penetrate deeper than the stratum corneum would not be within chiropractic scope.