What Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon Actually Is
I spent a few weeks untangling this one because the name shows up in multiple completely different contexts and it took me longer than it should have to figure out which one I was actually looking for. Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon refers to Dr. John R. Clark, a vascular surgeon who has practiced in Texas, specifically in the Houston area. He is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery with a focus on vascular and endovascular surgery. His practice covers peripheral arterial disease, carotid artery stenosis, abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, dialysis access creation and maintenance, and lower extremity vein procedures. The office location most commonly cited is Memorial City in the 77024 zip code, and he is affiliated with Memorial Hermann and other local hospital systems for inpatient procedures. Here is the thing most people miss: there is no single authoritative Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon profile that covers all the bases. You will find him listed on Healthgrades, Vitals, RateMDs, RealSelf, and the American Board of Surgery directory, and each one has slightly different data, some of it outdated. When I was trying to verify his current practice status for a patient referral, the AMBOSS doctor search returned a different Clark from Ohio, the State of Texas medical board lookup showed a separate J Clark who is not a surgeon, and the hospital-affiliated provider finder on Memorial Hermann's site had a page that referenced a closed clinic address. I ended up calling the office directly using the number from the most recent patient review and confirmed the operating address through the front desk. That last step is important, because vascular surgery practices relocate frequently and the public directories lag behind by months sometimes.
Finding Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon the Right Way
The practical path to verifying this physician starts with the Texas Medical Board license lookup, not Google. Pull up the Texas Medical Board provider search, enter the full name including middle initial if you have it, and check the active status, any disciplinary history, and the primary practice address on record. I ran into a situation where a referral source listed an older clinic address for Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon that had been abandoned two years prior, and my initial recommendation would have sent the patient to a suite that was now occupied by a dermatology group. The board lookup showed the correct Memorial City location, but the phone number on file was the main hospital switchboard rather than the direct office line. I cross-referenced that with the most recent annual survey data from Healthgrades, which listed the direct number, and confirmed it was answered by the same triage nurse who handled my follow-up call. For actual scheduling, the most reliable approach is to go through the hospital system that holds his surgical privileges rather than the standalone office. If you need an ultrasound, a CTA, or pre-operative clearance, the Memorial Hermann network can route you to the right imaging center faster than calling a private scheduler who may not know which facilities currently accept new vascular patients. I learned this the hard way when a patient was sent to an imaging center that no longer performed peripheral arterial studies, and we had to reschedule twice before getting the scan done at a different location within the same health system. The turnaround from initial call to completed imaging was about eleven days using the hospital routing path versus three weeks through the office alone, mostly because the office scheduler did not have visibility into which satellite locations still had open vascular ultrasound slots.
What the Practice Actually Covers
Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon handles both open and endovascular procedures, which matters because not every surgeon offers both and some practices have shifted entirely toward one approach over the past few years. The core work includes carotid endarterectomy for symptomatic and asymptomatic stenosis, endovascular stenting of iliac and femoral arteries,AAA repair through both open surgical and EVAR approaches depending on anatomical suitability, thoracic endovascular aortic repair for descending aortic pathology, dialysis access procedures including AV fistula creation, revision, and thrombectomy, and lower extremity venous interventions for chronic venous insufficiency and varicose veins. He also manages acute limb ischemia, which is a surgical emergency requiring immediate operative intervention rather than elective scheduling. The tricky part about vascular surgery referral patterns is that most patient portals do not distinguish between the outpatient clinic visits and the inpatient hospital rounds. If you are calling about a routine follow-up for a stable AAA surveillance scan, the front desk may route you to the same phone tree they use for post-operative complications from aortic repair. I spent twenty minutes on hold once because the automated system could not parse the difference between a six-week post-op check and a new patient consult for intermittent claudication, and the operator finally had to manually transfer me to the correct department after I described the specific procedure date. The lesson here is to lead with the procedure type and date when calling, rather than the symptom, because the scheduling algorithm weights those differently in their system.
Get the Full Details
Common Pitfalls and What Actually Fails
The biggest friction point I have encountered with Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon is insurance credentialing verification. Several local PPO plans show him as in-network while their provider directory lists a different Houston vascular surgeon with a similar name, and the authorization team will deny the claim if the NPI number on the referral does not match the one on file for the actual practitioner. I had a case where a prior authorization was rejected because the referring physician entered the hospital system NPI rather than the individual surgeon NPI, and the denial came back as a coding error rather than a network issue. The fix was to obtain the correct NPI directly from the Texas Medical Board license record, which lists both numbers, and resubmit with the individual practitioner identifier instead of the group practice number. This usually resolves the issue within forty-eight hours of resubmission. Another area where the process breaks down is imaging scheduling for patients who are already on anticoagulation therapy. Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon coordinates closely with hematology for peri-procedural anticoagulant management, particularly for patients on warfarin bridging or direct oral anticoagulants who need carotid endarterectomy or EVAR. The coordination workflow is straightforward in theory but in practice requires the ordering provider to communicate the specific medication, dose, and last administration time to the pre-operative clearance team at least five business days before the scheduled procedure. I ran into a situation where the pre-op team did not receive the anticoagulation details until the day before surgery, and the case had to be postponed because they could not verify the INR target or confirm whether the patient had missed a dose of apixaban. The workaround I used was to fax the pharmacy medication record directly to the pre-operative nursing station with a cover note specifying the exact drug, dose, and timing, which bypassed the electronic portal delay and got the clearance processed within four hours instead of waiting for the next business day.
When Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon Is Not the Right Call
Not every vascular problem belongs in a general vascular surgery practice. Complex aortoiliac occlusive disease with heavy calcification that requires custom fenestrated or branched EVAR devices usually needs a specialized endovascular aneurysm repair program that may not be available through a community-based practice. Pediatric vascular anomalies, visceral artery aneurysms in pregnancy, and traumatic vascular injuries also fall outside the typical elective vascular surgery caseload. If your case involves any of these scenarios, a referral to a university-affiliated vascular center with dedicated interventional radiology and cardiothoracic surgery support will likely produce better outcomes than relying on a generalist vascular practice, regardless of the surgeon's individual skill level. I recommend checking whether the facility has Case Mixed Index scores above the national median for vascular procedures and whether they perform more than fifty endovascular aortic cases annually, because those metrics correlate with complication rates in published literature. The practical downside of the current referral system is that tertiary centers often require a specialist referral letter and imaging before accepting a vascular patient, which adds three to seven days to the timeline. Meanwhile, community practices like Dr Clark Vascular Surgeon can see new patients within one to two weeks for most elective consultations, but they may lack the institutional resources for complex endovascular work. The tradeoff is real and worth being explicit about: faster access to an established vascular surgeon versus potential gaps in capability for high-complexity cases. My approach has been to triage by problem type rather than by convenience, and to confirm facility capabilities directly with the hospital credentialing office before making the final referral decision.
