Montebello-based DLP Eye Group Inc. is shutting down all eight of its eye care and surgery centers next week, according to a notice filed with state authorities and a posting on its website.

According to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with the state Employment Development Department, 136 employees are affected. The announced closure date is March 18.

Seven of the DLP Eye Group clinics are in Los Angeles County: Commerce, El Monte, Huntington Park, Long Beach, the Westlake neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles, Montebello and Van Nuys. The eighth clinic is in Santa Ana in Orange County.

Clinic’s 1980s roots

According to DLP Eye Group’s website, ophthalmologist William de la Peña started the first eye care center in Montebello in 1984. Over the next five years, the company expanded throughout Los Angeles County. The clinics offered a full array of eye care services, from eye surgery to eye exams and optometry. According to the company’s website, DLP Eye Group opened a laser surgery center in 2003 that is now at the Montebello clinic.

In 2019, DLP Eye Group established a partnership affiliation with Nashville, Tennessee-based Covenant Surgical Partners, which in turn is now owned by Tenet Healthcare.

Like nearly all types of health care providers, eye care clinics have faced financial pressures, including rising health care and prescription drug costs and reimbursement rates from government and private insurers that have not kept up. There have been scattered reports of bankruptcies and closures of eye care clinics across the nation. One of the largest involved Manhasset, New York-based chain Sound Vision Care Inc., which entered bankruptcy last June.