Our Story

Boling Vision Center is a third-generation ophthalmology practice founded in Elkhart, Indiana in 1960, built on a legacy of clinical excellence, genuine community care, and an unwavering belief that every person who walks through our doors deserves to be treated with dignity, warmth, and respect.

Where It All Began

In 1960, Dr. Richard Boling Sr. opened his ophthalmology practice in Elkhart, Indiana with a straightforward mission: to provide the families of Northern Indiana with exceptional eye care delivered with genuine human warmth. What he built was more than a medical practice. It was a community institution, a place where patients were treated like neighbors, where the care was personal, and where the standard was always excellence.

Dr. Boling Sr. was a pioneer in his field and a fixture in the Elkhart community, known not only for his surgical skill but for the way he made every patient feel seen, heard, and genuinely cared for. He set a standard that was never just about clinical outcomes. It was about the whole person sitting in the chair.

Richard Boling II, Whitney Boling, and Hayley Boling

A Practice Passed Down With Purpose

In time, Dr. Richard Boling II, known within the practice as B2, joined his father and carried that legacy forward with his own contributions to the practice and the field. Dr. Boling II became one of the most experienced cataract surgeons in the Michiana region, performing over 25,000 cataract procedures and earning the distinction of being the first surgeon in Michiana to perform no-needle, no-stitch, no-patch cataract surgery. His commitment to staying at the forefront of ophthalmic surgical technique reflected the same drive for excellence that his father had instilled from the beginning.

Under Dr. Boling II's leadership, the practice grew, deepened its clinical capabilities, and expanded its reach across Northern Indiana, always with the same family-first culture at its core.

The Third Generation

Dr. Whitney Boling, B3, represents the next chapter of a story that has now spanned more than six decades.

A fellowship-trained ophthalmologist, Dr. Whitney Boling, brought additional subspecialty expertise to the practice and a diagnostic approach that reflects the whole-person philosophy that has always defined Boling Vision Center.

Dr. Whitney Boling is known for asking the questions other providers don't think to ask, for pursuing root causes rather than isolated complaints, and for the attentiveness that has led to the detection of conditions including multiple sclerosis, Lyme disease, ocular tumors, and systemic inflammation during what began as routine eye appointments. That diagnostic mindset is a direct expression of a family culture that has never been willing to reduce a patient to a diagnosis code.

Growing to Serve Michiana

What began as a single practice in Elkhart has grown into a four-location ophthalmology practice serving the communities of Elkhart, Goshen, South Bend, and Notre Dame. Along the way, Boling Vision Center added an on-site Joint Commission-certified surgery center, launched INFOCUS Optical Lab, and established Kindness to Prevent Blindness, a nonprofit mobile eye care program that provides free vision services to underserved children and adults throughout Michiana. Each of these additions reflects the same impulse that drove Dr. Boling Sr. to open his practice in 1960: a belief that people deserve access to excellent eye care, and that a practice with the means to provide it has a responsibility to do so.

man getting his eye checked | child getting her eye checked | abstract art

What Has Never Changed

Through three generations, four locations, over 65 years of growth, and every advance in technology and technique, the things that define Boling Vision Center have remained constant.

We are independently owned and operated. We answer to our guests and our community, not to a corporate parent or a hospital system. The Boling family lives, works, and serves in the same communities as the guests they care for, and that proximity creates an accountability that no corporate structure can replicate.

We are a practice that invests in people. More heavily staffed than the norm, trained in hospitality as much as in clinical excellence, and guided by values, integrity, compassion, and excellence that were set by the founder and have never been compromised.

And we are a practice that believes amazing things happen when the right team, the right culture, and the right commitment to every individual guest come together in the same room.

Today and Beyond

Boling Vision Center today is led by CEO Hayley Boling and President and CMO Dr. Richard Boling II, with Dr. Whitney Boling and a team of experienced ophthalmologists and optometrists providing care across four Northern Indiana locations. The practice includes over 115 team members, an on-site surgery center and optical lab, and a nonprofit that has restored sight and dignity for thousands of community members who might otherwise have gone without care.

The story that began with one doctor and one practice in Elkhart in 1960 is still being written. And the standard, that every guest deserves to be treated with excellence, compassion, and genuine human care, has never wavered for a single day.

Amazing happens here. It always has.