Respond to post with 75 words . To start a coding audit, you need to select the appropriate number of cases/accounts you plan on working with and if you are going to do a surveillance or outlier audit. Once that is established you need to decide what methodology you are going to use. The three types of methodology are random, stratified random, and focused audit. Each type of methodology involves a different level of auditing. A random sample gives you broad results. In a stratified random the auditor can sample certain coders if needed. The focused audit identifies which accounts will have a higher risk of having errors. When doing a code audit make sure you collect all appropriate data. Examples of the type of data to collect are "patient identification, date of service, CPT code billed with or without a modifier(s), CPT codes audited, comments on CPT code assignment, ICD-10-CM code billed, and diagnosis code comments." Once the audit information has been collected and organized then the auditor would be able to present their report with ease by using these best coding practices