Eye Life Institute, Paradise: NPI Registry Record and Eye Exam Cost Context
What the registry record says
- NPI number
- 1578584769
- Legal business name
- Jerome Wh Niswonger MD Inc
- Registered trading name
- Eye Life Institute
- Primary registered specialty
- Optometrist (152W00000X)
- Other registered specialties
- Ophthalmology
- Practice location
- 6283 Clark Rd, #10
Paradise, CA 95969-4100 - Phone on the record
- (530) 877-2020
- NPI issued
- July 22, 2006
- Record last updated by the practice
- September 11, 2025
- Registry status
- NPI registry record, active as reported by CMS August 2026
- Metro area
- Chico, CA
- County
- Butte County
- Locations under this name
- 3 registered nationally
- Location precision
- Street address matched by the US Census geocoder
Reading this record
The practice bills under the legal name Jerome Wh Niswonger MD Inc and registered Eye Life Institute as its trading name, so an insurance statement may show a name that does not match the sign on the door. Beyond the primary code the record carries Ophthalmology, which is the registry's own signal that the practice covers more than routine work. 3 locations nationally are registered under the same name, so pricing and policies are likely to be set at group level rather than at this office. The entry was refreshed in September 2025, putting it among the 3 of 28 Chico records updated in 2024 or later, so the contact details are more likely to be current than most of this metro.
For local context: Paradise holds 5 registered eye care practices in this snapshot, 3 of them optometry and 2 ophthalmology, in ZIP codes including 95969. No other practice in the city took its NPI earlier than this one, which makes it the longest-registered address here. The closest is David J Gajda MD A Professional Corporation in Paradise, 0.9 miles away.
None of this is a licensing check. CMS issues an NPI so a provider can be identified in billing transactions, and states plainly that issuance does not ensure or validate that the holder is licensed or credentialed. The California boards hold the licensing record, and the practice itself is the only source for what it charges today.
Nearest registered practices
26 other registered eye care practices sit within 25 miles of this address, a radius that does not stop at the metro boundary. Inside the Chico metro itself there are 28, 4 of them elsewhere in Paradise. The closest 5 are below, measured straight line between registered addresses.
| Practice | City | Registered as | Distance | Phone on record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| David J Gajda MD A Professional Corporation | Paradise | Ophthalmology | 0.9 mi | (530) 877-2020 |
| David J Gajda, MD, A Professional Corporation | Paradise | Ophthalmology | 0.9 mi | (530) 877-2020 |
| Robert Di Pietro OD Optometric Corporation | Paradise | Optometry | 1.0 mi | (530) 877-2250 |
| Paradise Optometry Group | Paradise | Optometry | 1.4 mi | (530) 872-1376 |
| Ridge Eye Care Inc | Chico | Ophthalmology | 10.3 mi | (530) 891-1900 |
Distances are straight line between registered practice locations, not driving distance. Records placed at a ZIP centroid rather than a matched street address are excluded from this comparison.
What to expect to pay at an optometry practice like this
The NPI registry holds no prices, so nothing here is a quote from Eye Life Institute. Based on this site's own price research, an independent optometry practice typically charges $120 to $200 for an exam without insurance, against a national average of about $136 and roughly $25 once a vision plan pays its share.
Ask two things when you call: whether the quoted fee includes the refraction, and what a contact lens fitting adds if you wear lenses, since that takes a visit to $150 to $370. A comprehensive exam is $100 to $250. If price is the deciding factor, the 28 practices on the Chico page give you the full local field to call around.