Once they've been denied, the blame falls on the coders, but they typically don't have all the facts at their disposal by the time it gets there. Lack of documentation, lack of authorization, or lack of flagging for the secondary payer puts coders at risk of failure before they even pick up the pen. What matters is fixing the handoff between the departments, not the coders. This is evident in general surgery billing services, with several providers, assistant surgeons, and multiple procedures that provide ample opportunity for information to be lost. No matter how proficient a programmer is, they can't rectify a workflow that does not provide a full package of information to begin with.