How many procedures does Medicare cover under the ASC payment system?

• A. 3,700
• B. 1,500
• C. 5,000
• D. 2,000

Answer: (A)

Medicare designates a specific, finite set of procedures that are payable under the ASC payment system. This isn’t all CPT/HCPCS codes—only those that CMS has approved for ASC payment. That list is very large, running into thousands of procedures, and CMS updates it periodically as codes are added or moved to different settings. The key idea is that ASC reimbursement is tied to this predefined list, not to every possible procedure. So the correct choice reflects this broad, but not universal, scope of covered procedures, whereas the other options represent numbers far outside the true range of eligible ASC procedures.