Can a Primary Care Doctor - Internal Medicine, Inject Juvederm Fillers and Botox Cosmetic?

"Can a Primary Care Doctor inject Botox?" is a different question than "Should a Primary care Doctor inject Botox?" The answer to the first question is yes, the answer to the second is obviously not.  A Primary Care Doctor has no formal training in injectables, no formal training in facial anatomy, no training in surgical/ nonsurgical aesthetic facial rejuvenation during residency or post-graduate medical education.  Although your Primary care Doctor is likely to be less expensive than your Facial Plastic Surgeon or Plastic Surgeon, the results may be unpredictable.  The companies that produce neurotoxins and fillers cannot regulate who they sell their products to and in the State of Florida, a license to practice Medicine allows any Doctor to perform Aesthetic Medicine.  However, I don't deliver babies and I don't take out gallbladders since I don't have any particular expertise in doing so.  The same logic should apply to injectables, but poor reimbursement in medicine has changed the rules.

Legally any physician with a license can inject dermal fillers and Botox but the question is should they? It really depends of training and experience. A License doesn't make you a good injector. It's having an eye and the touch for aesthetics as well as skill and training. Typically a Plastic Surgeon and Dermatologist have advanced training in Skin Rejuvenation methods and placement of product.

Certainly, it is allowed for an internist to do cosmetic injections, but wouldn't you rather have the expert's expert do the treatment on you?  Dermatologists and plastic surgeons do the most treatments with fillers and botox. Having a good understanding of the anatomy and how the fillers / botox work help your expert give you a better treatment.

anyone with a medical license CAN perform these procedures. but they SHOULD NOT! its not that they cant, its the fact that they dont know how to handle complications. fillers and botox and other minor cosmetic procedures are not 100% safe. if they were, AMA would allow a lay person to inject. and these products would not be so heavily regulated. the truth is these procedures have their own baggage of side effects and those are very scary, including but not limited to something as severe as permanent vision loss and disfigurement. I have seen it and treated it myself on patients coming from other facilities. just be careful.  

In most states, there is no restriction on in-office practices for physicians - internal medicine docs can inject Botox and fillers. This is out of the scope of their training. But some docs get quite good at these procedures. The real question is what would this physician do in case of a severe complication from filler or Botox injection. Could this doc handle that situation. If the answer is no, then I would argue that the physician is practicing out of their scope of practice. Just my opinion.