- ABVM-ENDO is administered through APCA/Inteleos and delivered at Pearson VUE test centers.
- The exam has about 135 multiple-choice questions in a two-hour session, scored 300-700 with a 555 passing threshold.
- Treatment and Interventions makes up 64% of the content outline, dwarfing the other three domains combined.
- The total fee is $1,370, including a $200 nonrefundable processing component; testing outside North America adds $50.
What ABVM-ENDO Actually Is
The ABVM Endovascular Medicine Examination (ABVM-ENDO) is a physician-level credentialing exam focused on endovascular and peripheral-interventional practice. It is not a general vascular-medicine survey exam and it is not the same as similarly named credentials offered by other organizations - this article covers only the ABVM Endovascular Medicine Examination administered through APCA/Inteleos. If you searched "what is a ABVM-ENDO" because you saw the acronym elsewhere and want the specifics that actually apply to this exam, you're in the right place.
At its core, the credential verifies that a physician has the clinical judgment, procedural volume, and diagnostic reasoning needed to manage patients across the full arc of peripheral vascular disease - from initial risk assessment through intervention and long-term surveillance. For a plain-language breakdown of the name itself, see ABVM-ENDO Meaning and What Does ABVM-ENDO Stand For?.
Who Administers the Exam
The exam sits under the American Board of Vascular Medicine (ABVM) and is administered operationally through APCA/Inteleos. Testing itself happens at Pearson VUE test centers, which handle scheduling, identity verification, and secure delivery of the computer-based exam. This three-part structure - sponsoring board, administering organization, testing vendor - is standard for many physician credentialing exams, but it's worth understanding because it explains why registration, fee payment, and score reporting each happen through slightly different channels.
For a full walkthrough of the credential itself, including how it differs from board certification in a primary specialty, see ABVM-ENDO Certification and What Is ABVM-ENDO Certification?.
Exam Format and Scoring
Candidates answer approximately 135 multiple-choice questions in a two-hour testing session. That works out to under a minute per question on average, which means the exam rewards fast, confident pattern recognition over slow first-principles derivation for most items. Questions are scored on a scaled range of 300-700, and a candidate must reach 555 to pass.
According to the official 2025 performance summary, first-time candidates passed at a 75% rate, repeat candidates passed at 100%, and the overall pass rate across all attempts was 77%. Those numbers are worth sitting with - first attempts are meaningfully harder than repeat attempts, which suggests that most failures are addressable gaps rather than raw ability problems. For a deeper look at what these numbers mean for your own preparation timeline, read ABVM-ENDO Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows and ABVM-ENDO Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass.
Key Takeaway
A 555 passing score on a 300-700 scale is not "70% correct" - it's a scaled result. Don't try to reverse-engineer a raw percentage; focus on domain mastery instead.
The Four Content Domains
The current official outline is Version 24.1, linked to the 2026 testing cycle. It organizes exam content into four domains with very unequal weighting - and understanding that imbalance is probably the single most useful thing you can do before opening a question bank.
Domain 1: Pathophysiology, Risk Factors, and Screening (8%)
Covers the mechanistic and epidemiologic foundation of peripheral vascular disease - atherosclerotic risk factors, disease progression, and appropriate screening strategies for at-risk populations.
- Lightest-weighted domain; don't over-invest study hours here relative to its share of the exam.
Domain 2: Diagnosis and Testing (16%)
Focuses on non-invasive and invasive diagnostic modalities used to characterize peripheral vascular disease before a treatment decision is made - imaging interpretation, functional testing, and correlating findings with clinical presentation.
- Expect scenario-based questions pairing test results with next-step decisions.
Domain 3: Treatment and Interventions (64%)
This is the exam. Nearly two-thirds of all questions live here, spanning endovascular technique selection, device and access considerations, procedural complications, and medical management decisions that accompany intervention.
- Highest-yield domain by far - allocate the majority of your study time and question-bank repetitions here.
Domain 4: Prognosis, Surveillance, and Re-intervention (12%)
Covers what happens after intervention - surveillance protocols, recognizing failure or restenosis, and deciding when re-intervention is warranted.
- Often tested alongside Domain 3 scenarios as a "what happens next" follow-up question.
Because Treatment and Interventions carries such disproportionate weight, a domain-by-domain study plan that ignores this ratio is a common reason candidates underperform on their first attempt. For a complete breakdown of every subtopic within each domain, see ABVM-ENDO Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 4 Content Areas.
| Domain | Weight | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Pathophysiology, Risk Factors, and Screening | 8% | Foundational disease mechanisms and screening |
| Diagnosis and Testing | 16% | Imaging and functional test interpretation |
| Treatment and Interventions | 64% | Endovascular technique and procedural decision-making |
| Prognosis, Surveillance, and Re-intervention | 12% | Post-procedure follow-up and re-intervention timing |
Who Can Sit for the Exam
Eligibility requires an unrestricted physician license, an accepted current board certification, and completion of either the fellowship pathway or the practice pathway.
- Fellowship pathway: requires qualifying peripheral-interventional training completed within three years of application, plus program-director attestation.
- Practice pathway: requires local privileges, recent peripheral procedures, and institutional attestation.
Both pathways share a common procedural floor: 100 diagnostic and 50 therapeutic peripheral interventions, with at least half performed as primary operator. The practice pathway layers on additional recency requirements - the qualifying procedure totals must fall within two years, with at least half of them completed during the preceding 12 months.
These thresholds exist for a reason: they map directly onto the procedural judgment tested in Domain 3. For the full checklist, including documentation tips, see ABVM-ENDO Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.
Cost, Fees, and Testing Windows
The total examination fee is $1,370, which includes a $200 nonrefundable processing component. Candidates testing outside the United States, Canada, and Mexico pay an additional $50. For the 2026 cycle, applications are accepted July 7 through September 15, 2026, with the testing window running September 29 through October 29, 2026.
Those dates matter for planning your study calendar backward - if you apply near the close of the window, you'll have very little runway before testing opens. For a detailed cost breakdown, including what the nonrefundable component covers, read ABVM-ENDO Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown. For the full application-to-test timeline, see ABVM-ENDO Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling.
Who Hires ABVM-ENDO Diplomates
Physicians who hold this credential are typically already working in interventional cardiology, vascular surgery, interventional radiology, or vascular medicine - the certification serves as an additional, focused verification of endovascular competency rather than a standalone entry credential. Hospital systems, multi-specialty vascular groups, and outpatient endovascular centers use it as a differentiator when recruiting or credentialing physicians for peripheral-intervention privileges.
Because the exam is procedure-heavy and skews so heavily toward Domain 3, employers reviewing candidates for cath-lab or vascular-lab leadership roles often treat it as evidence of hands-on interventional judgment, not just textbook knowledge. If you're weighing whether pursuing this credential fits your career trajectory, ABVM-ENDO Jobs and Is the ABVM-ENDO Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 walk through the practical considerations, and ABVM-ENDO Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis covers earnings context.
Keeping the Certification Current
Passing the exam is not a one-time event. Maintenance requires current licensure, annual renewal and attestation, an annual knowledge-confirmation cycle, and ongoing CME. The knowledge-confirmation cycle consists of four quarterly quizzes of 10 questions each - all 40 questions must be answered, with at least 80% cumulative accuracy required by December 31.
There's also a CME transition rule worth knowing early: under the ABVM maintenance transition, the 25-CME three-year period starts in the calendar year after your existing certificate's expiration year. Missing this detail can create confusion about which CME cycle you're actually in, so mark it on your calendar as soon as you're certified.
Key Takeaway
Budget time each quarter for the 10-question knowledge-confirmation quiz - treat all four quarters as one connected 40-question requirement, not four isolated pop quizzes.
Preparing for the Exam
Given the domain weighting, the most defensible study strategy is to spend the bulk of your preparation time on Treatment and Interventions topics - technique selection, device considerations, and procedural complication management - while still building enough fluency in Diagnosis and Testing and Prognosis/Surveillance to handle the scenario-based questions that connect domains together. Pathophysiology and screening content should get a lighter, earlier pass since it carries the smallest weight.
A simple sequencing approach: spend early study weeks on the foundational Domain 1 and Domain 2 material so you have the diagnostic vocabulary in place, then shift the majority of remaining weeks into Domain 3 practice questions and case-based review, finishing with Domain 4 surveillance and re-intervention scenarios layered on top of the interventional cases you've already reviewed. Repetition with timed multiple-choice sets matters here because the two-hour, 135-question format rewards speed as much as accuracy.
For a structured week-by-week plan built around this exact domain distribution, see ABVM-ENDO Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt. If you're still calibrating how demanding this exam actually is relative to your current experience level, How Hard Is the ABVM-ENDO Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 breaks that down directly. And when you're ready for condensed, high-yield review in the final weeks, ABVM-ENDO Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts is built for exactly that purpose.
Foundation
- Review pathophysiology, risk factors, and core diagnostic modalities (Domains 1-2)
Core Focus
- Drill Treatment and Interventions scenarios heavily - this is 64% of the exam
Integration
- Layer in surveillance and re-intervention decisions (Domain 4), then run full timed practice sets
If you want to test your readiness against realistic, timed multiple-choice sets modeled on the actual 135-question, two-hour format, you can start with practice questions on the main practice test site, which offers ABVM Endovascular practice questions organized by domain weight. Working through a full-length ABVM-ENDO question bank before your test date is one of the most reliable ways to confirm you're actually ready rather than just familiar with the material - explore the question sets on the practice test homepage to get started, and browse additional review resources on the main site as your test date approaches.
Frequently Asked Questions
It refers to the ABVM Endovascular Medicine Examination, administered through APCA/Inteleos and delivered via Pearson VUE test centers. See What Does ABVM-ENDO Mean? for more on the terminology.
The exam contains approximately 135 multiple-choice questions, and candidates have two hours to complete it.
You need a scaled score of 555 on a range of 300-700. See ABVM-ENDO Passing Score 2026 for a full explanation of the scaling.
Treatment and Interventions, which accounts for 64% of the content outline - by far the largest share of any domain.
The total fee is $1,370, including a $200 nonrefundable processing component. Testing outside the U.S., Canada, and Mexico adds $50. See ABVM-ENDO Certification Cost 2026 for the full breakdown.