Beach Cities Retina, Hermosa Beach: NPI Registry Record and Eye Exam Cost Context
What the registry record says
- NPI number
- 1699474163
- Legal business name
- Gautam Vangipuram MD Inc
- Registered trading name
- Beach Cities Retina
- Primary registered specialty
- Ophthalmology, Retina Specialist (207WX0107X)
- Practice location
- 555 Pier Ave Ste D
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254-3801 - Phone on the record
- (815) 342-1739
- NPI issued
- February 23, 2023
- Record last updated by the practice
- February 23, 2023
- Registry status
- NPI registry record, active as reported by CMS August 2026
- Metro area
- Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA
- County
- Los Angeles County
- Location precision
- Street address matched by the US Census geocoder
Reading this record
The practice bills under the legal name Gautam Vangipuram MD Inc and registered Beach Cities Retina as its trading name, so an insurance statement may show a name that does not match the sign on the door. The entry was last refreshed in February 2023. That is neither fresh nor ancient by the standards of this metro, where 305 of 1,867 records were updated in 2024 or later and 1,085 predate 2020.
For local context: Hermosa Beach holds 6 registered eye care practices in this snapshot, 5 of them optometry and 1 ophthalmology, in ZIP codes including 90254. 4 of them took an NPI before this practice did. The closest is Robert Scott Kapust OD Inc in Hermosa Beach, 0.1 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
1,055 other registered eye care practices sit within 25 miles of this address, a radius that does not stop at the metro boundary. Inside the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro itself there are 1,867, 5 of them elsewhere in Hermosa Beach. The closest 5 are below, measured straight line between registered addresses.
| Practice | City | Registered as | Distance | Phone on record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robert Scott Kapust OD Inc | Hermosa Beach | Optometry | 0.1 mi | (310) 374-9899 |
| Elements Optometry P.C. | Hermosa Beach | Optometry | 0.1 mi | (310) 374-9899 |
| Visionary Optometry Inc. | Hermosa Beach | Optometry | 0.6 mi | (310) 372-5213 |
| Eyes of Hermosa Optometry | Hermosa Beach | Optometry | 0.6 mi | (310) 938-4266 |
| C .well Vision Care | Hermosa Beach | Optometry | 0.6 mi | (310) 933-5035 |
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 ophthalmology practice like this
The NPI registry holds no prices, so nothing here is a quote from Beach Cities Retina. Based on this site's own price research, an ophthalmology practice typically charges $150 to $300 or more for an exam without insurance, against a national average of about $136 and roughly $25 once a vision plan pays its share.
Ophthalmology visits are usually medical rather than routine, which changes who pays: medical insurance and Medicare Part B cover a medically necessary exam, while a routine refraction for glasses is normally not covered. Ask whether the visit will be billed as medical or routine before you book, and compare with the 1,244 optometry practices on the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim page if you only need a prescription.