There are several steps in the medical billing and coding process. In the medical billing process, doctors prepare and sign documentation of the patient's visit. The next step is to enter medical codes and patient visit transactions into the practice management program and prepare claims. The process used to generate credits must comply with the rules imposed by federal and state laws, as well as the requirements of the payer. Correct statements help reduce the possibility of an investigation of the practice for fraud and also the risk of liability if an investigation occurs (Valerius, Bayes, Newby & Seggern, 2008). Most doctors depend on their staff to process medical bills without reviewing them before they are submitted for payment. Some physicians who do not monitor medical billing procedures may not receive the payment they deserve (Adams, Norman, & Burroughs, 2002). Various errors can occur in the billing and coding process. When a problem occurs in the encoding process, this can cause requests to be rejected. Some of these problems include truncated coding, mismatch between the patient's sex or age and the selected code when the code implies selection for one of the criteria, hypothesis coding (reporting items or services that have not been documented , but which the coder assumes were performed), alter documentation after services have been reported, code without adequate documentation, report services produced by unlicensed and/or unqualified clinical staff, code a one-sided service twice instead to choose the bilateral code and not meet the coverage conditions for a particular service. These errors may result in denials or delays in payments... half of paper... standards of practice, conduct training and education, and respond appropriately to correct errors. Although there are numerous problems in the coding and billing process, if the appropriate steps are carefully followed and reviewed, most coding and billing errors can be avoided (Valerius, Bayes, Newby, & Seggern, 2008).Works CitedAdams, D ., Norman, H., & Burroughs, V. (2002) Journal of the National Medical Association.Addressing Medical Coding and Billing Part II: a strategy for achieving compliance. A risk management approach to reduce coding and billing errors. Retrieved July 14, 2009, from http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=2594405&pageindex=11#page Valerius, J., Bayes, N., Newby, C., & Seggern, J. (2008 ). Medical Insurance: An Integrated Approach to the Claims Process (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.