Peptide programs give a plastic surgery practice a non-surgical, recurring-revenue layer that runs between and alongside surgical cases. As a licensed provider you can prescribe under your own authority or use a provider network for coverage. Four programs fit an aesthetic patient base: Sermorelin, NAD+, glutathione, and GLP-1.
This guide covers which programs belong in an aesthetic practice, how prescribing works when you are the provider, how the programs fit your existing workflow, and what the economics look like when a case-based practice adds monthly program revenue.
The Plastic Surgery Advantage: Patients Already Committed to Outcomes
Your patients are the highest-commitment buyers in aesthetics. They have paid thousands of dollars for surgical results, planned recovery around their lives, and built trust with your team over multiple visits. Aesthetic practices have no acquisition problem to solve before a program launches. They have an audience that already buys, already returns, and already refers.
The market around that audience keeps expanding. The ASPS 2023 procedural statistics report counted 25.4 million cosmetic minimally invasive procedures in the United States, up 7 percent from the prior year, while cosmetic surgical procedures grew 5 percent. Demand has shifted to ongoing maintenance of the results patients have already paid for.
The GLP-1 wave is reshaping the specialty from the inside. In that same 2023 report, the ASPS president noted that semaglutide medications are making patients healthier and that plastic surgeons are essential to helping them complete their weight-loss journey with face and body contouring. Facelifts rose 8 percent in 2023, a jump the report links to the effects of GLP-1 medications. Liposuction remained the most performed surgical procedure at 347,782 cases.
That is the opening for peptide programs. Your patients are already committed to outcomes, and the fastest-growing segments of your case mix, weight loss and body contouring, come with natural conversations about recovery, skin quality, and energy. Programs capture that demand as monthly recurring revenue instead of letting it walk to a direct-to-consumer telehealth brand. The same patients who trust you with a facelift will trust you with a provider-supervised recovery program, and they would rather keep that relationship in your practice.
Which Programs Fit an Aesthetic Practice
The programs below are compounded medications prescribed by a licensed provider, built around FDA Category 1 substances. The offering is deliberately limited: Category 2 peptides such as BPC-157 and TB-500 remain on hold pending FDA rulemaking and are not part of a compliant program today. Our guide to FDA Category 1 peptides explains the category system and what is legally offerable.
Sermorelin: Recovery, Body Composition, and Healthy Aging
Sermorelin is a synthetic analog of growth hormone releasing hormone that stimulates the body’s own growth hormone output. For your patients it reads as recovery and anti-aging: better sleep, better energy, lean mass support, and skin quality that reflects systemic health rather than topical care. Protocols run in cycles of three to six months with at-home subcutaneous injections, which keeps clinical time minimal.
The fit in a surgical practice is twofold. Post-operative patients recovering from a facelift or body contouring case are actively managing healing, sleep, and energy. And the 40 to 60-year-old patients who make up the bulk of your injectables business are the same people who search for hormone optimization and healthy aging programs. Sermorelin is the entry point for both groups, and peptide therapy programs on the platform are structured so you set the price, the dosing levels, and the renewal cadence.
Glutathione: Skin Health and Brightening
Glutathione is a tripeptide that functions as the body’s master antioxidant, and it is the closest program to a skin-specific offering in this lineup. It regulates melanogenesis, the process that produces pigment, which is why it shows up in skin brightening and anti-aging protocols. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 2017 found that oral glutathione at 250 mg per day lowered the melanin index and ultraviolet spots on the face compared with placebo over 12 weeks, with no serious adverse effects. A 2026 systematic review in Molecules reached a similar conclusion, positioning glutathione as a central regulator of skin aging and tissue regeneration.
Your aesthetic patients already spend heavily on topicals, peels, and lasers. Glutathione is the systemic complement: a prescribed, provider-supervised program that supports skin from the inside while your compounded skin care program works from the outside. It pairs naturally with facials, chemical peels, and laser resurfacing, and it gives your estheticians a medical-grade answer to the most common question in the room, “what else can I do for my skin?”
NAD+: Energy and Longevity
NAD+ is a coenzyme that declines with age and supports energy metabolism, DNA repair, and cellular signaling. It has become a cornerstone of longevity medicine, offered both as in-clinic IV infusions and at-home maintenance injections. Your patients raise it themselves: the 45-year-old who asks about fatigue, the patient who mentions “I just don’t bounce back like I used to” at a post-op visit, the established patient interested in biological age.
For a surgical practice, NAD+ works as a paired offering. In-clinic IV loading brings patients through your doors on a schedule, and at-home maintenance keeps them on a monthly program between visits. It is the program that captures the anti-aging conversation before it leaves for a standalone longevity clinic.
GLP-1: Pre- and Post-Operative Weight Management
Compounded GLP-1 medications are the highest-demand programs in cash-pay medicine, and they have a specific job in a surgical practice: weight management before and after surgery. KFF’s May 2024 health tracking poll found that 12 percent of US adults have taken a GLP-1 medication, a number that was still climbing as awareness spread. Among your patients, the ones pursuing body contouring or breast surgery are frequently the same ones managing their weight.
Weight optimization before body contouring improves surgical outcomes and reduces risk. Maintaining weight after surgery protects the results you worked to create. A medical weight loss program layered onto your aesthetic practice handles both phases, and it converts directly into surgical volume: patients who reach their goal weight become the next round of tummy tuck and body lift candidates.
Your Own License vs. a Provider Network
You are already a licensed provider, which changes the setup conversation entirely. Most practices that launch peptide programs through a telehealth platform have no prescriber on staff and rely on a provider network. You have a third option, and the platform accommodates all three.
Prescribing under your own authority. You keep full control: you choose the protocols, set the dosing levels, review every patient, and own every clinical decision. The platform handles what you do not want to build, patient signup, eligibility screening, routing prescriptions to a licensed compounding pharmacy, fulfillment, and refill cadence. Your license becomes the clinical backbone of the program, and the patient relationship stays entirely inside your practice.
Using the provider network for coverage and scale. Your authority does not cover every situation. If your practice operates across multiple states, you may not hold licenses in all of them. When you are in surgery or on vacation, a network provider can cover reviews and renewals so patients are never left waiting. If you want to stay surgical-only and never touch the prescribing side, the network handles it all while you remain the practice owner.
Both at once. The practical model for most surgical practices is hybrid. You register as the provider for your core patients, and the network absorbs overflow, coverage gaps, and any location you do not personally staff. One setup, one signup flow, one billing relationship. You set patient pricing and keep the margin above medication and consult costs in every model.
How It Fits the Practice Workflow
A surgical calendar runs in peaks and valleys: heavy OR days, recovery weeks, seasonal pauses. Program revenue is level. A roster of program patients produces the same monthly recurring line whether you are in a full surgical week or between cases, which smooths the practice’s revenue curve without adding a single OR block.
The clinical load is small. Patients complete signup online, come in for baseline labs, and check in with you or a team member at eight to twelve week intervals for a response review before renewal. The programs reuse the infrastructure you already have: front desk staff, the consultation room, the med spa suite if you run one. There is no new chair time per patient beyond a periodic review, and renewals require only a provider review before the next prescription.
Programs also extend what your aesthetic team already sells. Injectable patients are the natural audience for Sermorelin and NAD+. Skin care patients are the audience for glutathione. Weight loss patients, whether they are yours or referred from your medical weight loss program, are the audience for GLP-1. The team does not need new skills, only a new conversation to have with patients they already see.
Patient Conversation and Consent
The conversation belongs in visits you already hold. At a two-week post-operative check, recovery is the topic, and a recovery support program is a normal extension of it. At a body contouring consult, weight management is on the table before the surgery is scheduled. At a skin care follow-up, the patient has already told you what she wants, better skin, and glutathione is a direct answer.
The framing matters. You are describing a provider-supervised, prescription-based program, not recommending a supplement. A simple version: “We offer a prescribed recovery program that a lot of our patients use after surgery to support healing and energy. It is compounded, provider-supervised, and you would complete a signup and a review before anything is prescribed.” The patient decides; you stay in your role as their provider.
Consent follows the same standard as every other treatment you offer. Because the medications are compounded and often used off-label, informed consent documents the nature of the therapy, and the signup flow captures the health history and eligibility screening that precede any prescription. Every prescription is written by a licensed provider, filled by a licensed compounding pharmacy, and monitored on a defined review schedule. For your patients this is not a new concept. They have already signed consents for surgery; the standard for a peptide program is the same, just lighter.
Marketing That Works
You do not need paid acquisition to launch a program. The audience is already in your files.
The surgical waitlist. Patients waiting for a case are committed, informed, and looking for ways to improve their outcome before surgery. A note to your waitlist introducing the recovery and weight management programs converts at rates direct-to-consumer brands spend hundreds of dollars per patient to achieve.
Post-operative follow-up. The two-week and six-week checks are the highest-trust conversations you have with a patient. Recovery support and skin quality come up naturally, and the program fits the moment.
Patient messaging and newsletters. Your existing patient list is an engaged, opted-in audience. One announcement of the program, framed around recovery, skin health, and pre-surgical weight optimization, reaches every program candidate you have without a dollar of ad spend.
Your aesthetic team. Estheticians and nurse injectors hear about skin and weight goals in every room, all day. A short team brief on what the programs are and who qualifies turns them into the referral channel. Our guide for licensed estheticians covers how a non-prescribing team member introduces the program without overstepping their scope.
Economics: Recurring Revenue Alongside Surgical Cases
Program pricing in the market is well established. Peptide programs commonly price between $199 and $299 per month, and GLP-1 programs between $350 and $600 per month. After pass-through costs for medication and provider consults, net per peptide patient runs $70 to $110 per month, with GLP-1 netting more per patient.
The math at modest enrollment is straightforward. A practice with 30 peptide patients averaging $250 per month and 20 GLP-1 patients averaging $450 per month is carrying $16,500 per month in gross recurring revenue before costs. That is roughly the equivalent of one to two surgical cases a month, recurring without the OR time, the staffing, or the recovery risk.
Patient lifetime value drives the model. Programs run six to twelve months and beyond, and each renewal requires only a provider review, not new acquisition. A patient in month eight of a Sermorelin program carries zero acquisition cost and the same revenue as a new one. Surgical revenue is event-based and stops when the case closes. Program revenue compounds across patients, across programs, and across years. The platform runs on a flat monthly fee, so every additional patient improves margin directly.
Programs also feed the surgical side of the ledger. GLP-1 patients who reach their goal weight become body contouring candidates, which is exactly the pipeline the ASPS president described in the 2023 report. The recurring layer does not compete with surgery. It builds the next surgical schedule.
Getting Started
Start with the programs that map to conversations you already have. Sermorelin, glutathione, and GLP-1 cover recovery, skin, and weight, the three topics that come up in your practice every week. NAD+ can follow once the first cohort is running.
Decide your provider model first: prescribe under your own authority, use the provider network, or run both. Then set your patient pricing, brief your team on what the programs are and who qualifies, and announce to your waitlist and patient list. The entire launch runs through one platform setup, and the signup flow, screening, pharmacy fulfillment, and renewals are handled on your side of it.
If you want to see how the setup works for a licensed practice, book a call with Karpa Health. For a deeper look at protocol structure and compliance, our guide to compounded peptide protocols walks through what a compliant program requires.
