Mr. Cottos has over 33 years of government and private sector experience in compliance consulting and federal investigations, 23 years of which were in management and executive capacities. He is a recognized expert in the areas of corporate compliance, risk abatement, health care fraud and abuse, and litigation consulting.  He specializes in providing advisory services to health care organizations in the areas of corporate compliance program development, evaluation, training and compliance investigations and issue resolution. He has served as Interim Chief Compliance Officer for a number of health care organizations, ranging in size from 18,000 employees to 1,500 employees.  He is an expert in organization risk analysis and mitigation.  He has provided advisory compliance services across the spectrum of health care from hospitals to disease management companies.

PREVIOUS WORK
Mr. Cottos retired from federal service in 1998 as the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at the U.S. Department of Treasury, where he supervised and directed a nationwide group of auditors and investigators.  Prior to that, he served 15 years with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of Inspector General as Chief Inspector, responsible for headquarters oversight of health care fraud investigations being conducted nationwide. He also served as a DHHS Regional Inspector General for Investigations planning, directing and reviewing the highly sensitive investigative activities within the eight states covered by his office and nine sub-offices.  In his federal service, he has testified before 14 Congressional Committees on fraud and abuse issues.

Upon retirement from the federal government, he held senior supervisory positions with a “Big Four” accounting firm where he became intimately involved in the development, evaluation and enhancement of compliance activities and programs. In addition, he assisted a number of clients with forensic problems and assisted them in the proper conduct of internal investigations.

EDUCATION/AFFILIATIONS/RECOGNITION
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, University of New Mexico
Combat Veteran, United States Marine Corps, 1966-1970
American Health Lawyers Association, since November, 1998

PUBLICATIONS/PRESENTATIONS