Advantage Eye Care, Columbia: NPI Registry Record and Eye Exam Cost Context
What the registry record says
- NPI number
- 1285616037
- Legal business name
- Carolina Cataract Clinic
- Registered trading name
- Advantage Eye Care
- Primary registered specialty
- Ophthalmology (207W00000X)
- Practice location
- 115 Atrium Way, Suite 120
Columbia, SC 29223 - Phone on the record
- (803) 788-2276
- NPI issued
- November 17, 2005
- Record last updated by the practice
- January 3, 2022
- Registry status
- NPI registry record, active as reported by CMS August 2026
- Metro area
- Columbia, SC
- County
- Richland County
- Locations under this name
- 6 registered nationally
- Location precision
- Street address matched by the US Census geocoder
Reading this record
The practice bills under the legal name Carolina Cataract Clinic and registered Advantage Eye Care as its trading name, so an insurance statement may show a name that does not match the sign on the door. 6 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 last refreshed in January 2022. That is neither fresh nor ancient by the standards of this metro, where 19 of 103 records were updated in 2024 or later and 66 predate 2020.
For local context: Columbia holds 63 registered eye care practices in this snapshot, 48 of them optometry and 15 ophthalmology, in ZIP codes including 29223. No other practice in the city took its NPI earlier than this one, which makes it the longest-registered address here. The closest is Carolina Retina Center P.A. in Columbia, 0.2 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 South Carolina boards hold the licensing record, and the practice itself is the only source for what it charges today.
Nearest registered practices
94 other registered eye care practices sit within 25 miles of this address, a radius that does not stop at the metro boundary. Inside the Columbia metro itself there are 103, 62 of them elsewhere in Columbia. The closest 5 are below, measured straight line between registered addresses.
| Practice | City | Registered as | Distance | Phone on record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carolina Retina Center P.A. | Columbia | Retina | 0.2 mi | (803) 736-7200 |
| Apex Eyecare | Columbia | Optometry | 1.1 mi | (803) 622-2058 |
| Drs Eyecare, Inc. | Columbia | Optometry | 1.6 mi | (803) 741-2010 |
| Mason Family Vision, P.C. | Columbia | Optometry | 3.2 mi | (803) 865-5520 |
| America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses | Columbia | Optometry | 3.4 mi | (803) 704-6635 |
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 Advantage Eye Care. 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 78 optometry practices on the Columbia page if you only need a prescription.