Kiser Eye Care, Hickory: NPI Registry Record and Eye Exam Cost Context
What the registry record says
- NPI number
- 1417397027
- Legal business name
- Dr. Melanie S. Kiser PC
- Registered trading name
- Kiser Eye Care
- Primary registered specialty
- Optometrist (152W00000X)
- Practice location
- 1960 US Highway 70 SE
Hickory, NC 28602-5106 - Phone on the record
- (828) 323-8833
- NPI issued
- June 27, 2013
- Record last updated by the practice
- July 13, 2026
- Registry status
- NPI registry record, active as reported by CMS October 2026
- Metro area
- Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC
- County
- Catawba County
- Location precision
- Street address matched by the US Census geocoder
Reading this record
The practice bills under the legal name Dr. Melanie S. Kiser PC and registered Kiser Eye Care as its trading name, so an insurance statement may show a name that does not match the sign on the door. The entry was refreshed in July 2026, putting it among the 8 of 30 Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton records updated in 2024 or later, so the contact details are more likely to be current than most of this metro.
For local context: Hickory holds 13 registered eye care practices in this snapshot, 8 of them optometry and 5 ophthalmology, in ZIP codes including 28602. 7 of them took an NPI before this practice did. The closest is Elite Family Eye Care in Hickory, 0.4 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 North Carolina boards hold the licensing record, and the practice itself is the only source for what it charges today.
Nearest registered practices
34 other registered eye care practices sit within 25 miles of this address, a radius that does not stop at the metro boundary. Inside the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton metro itself there are 30, 12 of them elsewhere in Hickory. The closest 5 are below, measured straight line between registered addresses.
| Practice | City | Registered as | Distance | Phone on record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elite Family Eye Care | Hickory | Optometry | 0.4 mi | (919) 608-2579 |
| Cos Eye Care, O.D., P.A. | Hickory | Optometry | 0.5 mi | (828) 929-5515 |
| Mountain View Eye Center | Hickory | Optometry | 2.5 mi | (828) 294-1010 |
| Jody Dale Papazekos OD | Hickory | Optometry | 2.7 mi | (828) 322-3154 |
| Viewmont Eye Associates PLLC | Hickory | Ophthalmology | 2.8 mi | (828) 322-4973 |
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 Kiser Eye Care, and independent optometry practices do not publish fee schedules. Customers report paying $120 to $200 at this kind of practice without insurance, which is a reported band rather than a published price. The nearest published figure is $95, the median starting fee across the 1,280 US retail optical stores that print one (30 September 2026), and Medicare pays $149.64 for a comprehensive new-patient exam (CPT 92004). Ask Kiser Eye Care for its self-pay price.
Ask two things when you call: whether the quoted fee includes the refraction, and what a contact lens fitting adds if you wear lenses (the median published contact-lens fee is $129). A comprehensive exam is $80 to $120 at the middle half of stores that print a price. If price is the deciding factor, the 30 practices on the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton page give you the full local field to call around.