A vestibular audiologist is a licensed audiologist who specializes in balance and dizziness care — running and interpreting the vestibular assessment battery for patients with dizziness and balance disorders.
The career combines diagnostic testing, interpretation and report writing, and it can carry the American Board of Audiology's specialty credential.
Here is what the role involves, the tests, the settings and how to specialize.
What is a vestibular audiologist?
Vestibular audiology is the balance side of audiology.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) defines audiologists as the professionals who diagnose, manage and treat patients who have hearing, balance or related problems.
BLS also notes that audiologists help patients who have vertigo or other balance problems, for example by demonstrating head-movement or positioning exercises.
A vestibular audiologist is the audiologist whose caseload concentrates on that balance half of the definition — the vestibular system and the dizziness conditions that involve it.
Two scope-of-practice documents anchor the specialty's professional home.
The American Academy of Audiology's 2023 scope describes audiologists as independent practitioners who serve as point-of-entry health-care providers for persons with auditory and vestibular disorders.
ASHA's 2018 scope lists hearing and balance assessment, nonmedical treatment and rehabilitation, including diagnosis, among the services audiologists provide for people of all ages.
The specialty is not a separate profession.
Every vestibular audiologist practices under the audiology license their state issues — BLS notes all states require audiologists to be licensed — and the vestibular label describes a focus within that license, built through caseload, equipment and board credentials.
What tests does a vestibular audiologist run?
The center of the job is the vestibular assessment battery — the balance side of what ASHA's 2018 scope calls hearing and balance assessment, including diagnosis.
Our research confirms two test types by name.
Video head impulse testing (vHIT) and rotational vestibular assessment both appear in CMS's CY 2027 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule, which discusses new codes for each.
Our research did not verify a test-by-test description of the rest of the battery, or of the protocol and reporting work around it, so read a posting's duties list for what a specific balance lab runs.
Two rule changes are worth tracking as job knowledge.
The CPT Editorial Panel approved new vHIT codes in September 2025, and the proposed rule, published July 16, 2026, discusses new rotational vestibular assessment codes alongside them.
The final code numbers were not yet confirmed when the proposed rule was published.
Medicare's direct-access rule lets audiologists personally furnish diagnostic audiology tests once per patient per 12-month period without an order, but it covers non-acute hearing conditions and excludes services related to disequilibrium or hearing aids.
CMS has designated vestibular function tests as not applicable for the AB direct-access modifier, and the CY 2027 proposed rule restated that designation.
The career takeaway is narrow and practical: Medicare's no-order path does not cover vestibular function tests, so referral and payment questions in the balance lab follow the fee schedule and the practice's billing operation.
Where do vestibular audiologists work?
No employer category isolates this specialty.
Our research found no data source that counts vestibular or balance-lab audiologists separately from audiologists overall, so the employment map below is the one the federal data actually publishes.
BLS's 2025 profile names the largest employers of audiologists: offices of physicians (26%), offices of physical, occupational and speech therapists, and audiologists (26%), hospitals (16%) and educational services (10%).
That distribution is for audiologists as a whole — which of those employers run a balance lab is a check-the-posting question, because our sources publish no vestibular-specific employer counts.
The Academy's 2023 scope describes audiologists as independent practitioners who serve as point-of-entry health-care providers for persons with auditory and vestibular disorders.
The specialty's daily work follows that description: assessment, interpretation and the written findings that make up the diagnostic episode.
The credential side names no employer type either: VASC eligibility counts the hours — 550 direct vestibular patient contact hours plus 50 case-management hours within a 3-year period during the past 5 years — not a particular kind of practice.
Whatever the setting, the license underneath is the same one every state requires of audiologists.
How do you specialize in vestibular audiology?
The route runs through audiology first, then through documented vestibular experience.
The American Board of Audiology (ABA) offers the Vestibular Audiology Specialty Certification (VASC) alongside the Pediatric Audiology Specialty Certification (PASC), ABA Certified and the General Audiology Board Certification.
VASC is the credential that maps directly to this career.
Earn the degree and the license
BLS notes all states require audiologists to be licensed, with requirements that vary by state and typically include an AuD from an accredited program. The AuD typically takes 4 years, and entering one requires a bachelor's degree.Build post-degree paid experience
The experience requirement is post-degree full-time paid work; externship hours are ineligible, so the qualifying years start after graduation. The vestibular-specific numbers are separate and listed in the next step.Apply for the ABA's VASC
Eligibility requires a license plus either a doctoral degree with 3 years of post-degree full-time paid experience or a master's with 10 years. It also requires 550 direct vestibular patient contact hours and 50 case-management hours within a 3-year period during the past 5 years, plus two references.Recertify every 3 years
ABA specialty certifications, VASC included, require recertification every 3 years.
The application fees are $125 for Academy members and $160 for non-members.
The specialty exams are delivered online with live remote proctoring within a two-week window.
The hours requirement is the real gate: 550 direct contact hours is steady vestibular caseload work across years, not a course you can bolt on at the end.
Confirm before you apply
Vestibular audiology vs vestibular physical therapy
The two careers can meet at the same patients, and our research covers only the audiology side of the line.
On that side, assessment is core: ASHA's 2018 scope lists hearing and balance assessment, including diagnosis, among audiologists' services, performed under the audiology license.
The Academy's 2023 scope also lists treatment of certain vestibular conditions among audiologists' services: canalith repositioning for BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo), gaze stabilization exercises, and adaptation, habituation and substitution training.
BLS describes the same hands-on side, noting audiologists demonstrating head-movement or positioning exercises.
Payment rules draw a visible line around that treatment work.
CMS's Medicare Benefit Policy Manual (chapter 15, section 80.3) says Medicare law has no provision to pay audiologists for therapeutic services such as vestibular treatment or canalith repositioning, even though those services are generally within audiologists' scope of practice.
So the treatment side of an audiologist's vestibular scope is not something Medicare pays the audiologist for, whatever the scope documents allow.
Our research did not cover vestibular physical therapy — its training route, licensure or credentials — so check that side with the physical therapy profession's own sources rather than relying on this page.
Find vestibular audiologist jobs
When you look for balance-lab openings, search more than one job title.
The vestibular audiologist job board gathers current openings in one place, and the inline and footer links on this page take you there too.
When you scan postings, read the duties for named balance tests, such as vHIT or rotational testing, and the setting line, which tells you where the balance lab sits inside that employer's practice.
Employers run the same board the other way: the hiring guides for audiology practices are the practice-side starting point if you need to hire a vestibular audiologist rather than become one.
Career information for hearing care professionals and the practices that hire them, not medical, legal, clinical or licensing advice — confirm scope-of-practice, licensure and Medicare questions with your state audiology board, CMS and the bodies named above.