A clinic built to solve one problem: the wait.
When a surgeon asks for cardiac clearance, the clock is already running. In Los Angeles the average wait for a new cardiology appointment is more than three weeks, and at some offices it is over two months. Surgery dates don't wait that long. The Preops Clinic exists to take that one visit off the general cardiology queue and get the answer back to the surgeon in time.
Source: AMN Healthcare, 2025 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times, Los Angeles cardiology.
A dedicated service inside a cardiology practice
The Preops Clinic is the preoperative service of Valley Heart and Rhythm, a cardiology practice in Tarzana serving the San Fernando Valley. It is run inside the practice, by the same cardiology team, with the same equipment and the same standards, but with its own referral path, its own phone and fax lines, and scheduling that is reserved for patients who have a surgery date.
Why a separate service? Because a preoperative evaluation has one goal: to get the patient to and through surgery safely, without unnecessary delay and without unnecessary risk. That calls for a focused visit, a fast answer, and a letter the surgical team can act on. It is different from an ongoing cardiology relationship, which is what most cardiology offices are set up to provide by default. That relationship is sometimes exactly what a patient needs, but it is a different job at a different pace, and when the two are mixed, a clearance ends up waiting in line behind routine follow-ups.
Think of it the way you'd think of an urgent care: the promise is access and a reliable answer, delivered the same way every time.
Three commitments to every referring office
Guideline-based, not reflex-based
We follow ACC/AHA perioperative guidance. Testing is ordered when it would change the plan, such as an echocardiogram or a treadmill or imaging stress test, and not otherwise. A low-risk patient should not lose a surgery date to a workup that wasn't needed.
The surgeon's office hears first
The clearance letter, the consult note, and the reports of any testing go to the surgeon by fax, with a copy to the primary care physician. If anything could delay the case, we call the surgeon's office before the letter goes out. Nobody finds out the morning of surgery.
Patients go back where they came from
This is a preoperative service. When the evaluation turns up something that needs ongoing care, we coordinate it with the patient's primary care physician rather than quietly keeping the patient.
Menachem Wakslak, MD
Dr. Wakslak is a board-certified cardiologist with fellowship training in cardiac electrophysiology. He has practiced in the San Fernando Valley for more than thirteen years and founded Valley Heart and Rhythm in Tarzana, where The Preops Clinic operates.
He trained at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, completed his internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Maimonides Medical Center, and his electrophysiology fellowship at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He is on staff at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center and Northridge Hospital Medical Center.
The Preops Clinic was started by Dr. Wakslak. For HMO patients, referrals and authorizations should name Menachem Wakslak, MD, Valley Heart and Rhythm Medical, Inc.
Tarzana, CA 91356