Battling cancer and beating the odds with UnitedHealthcare
Deputy Andre Shoucair shares how his employer and health plan have carried him through a difficult cancer diagnosis.
On Dec. 21, 2017, Deputy Andre Shoucair got some news he’ll never forget.
That’s the day Shoucair, who is a school resource deputy for Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer or “NETs”, a rare condition in which a person’s neuroendocrine cells develop into tumors.
Deputy Andre shares his story of battling a rare cancer
Supported along the cancer journey
Shortly after getting his diagnosis, he shared the news with his boss, Sheriff Dennis Lemma. Shoucair remembers Sheriff Lemma saying: “You’re family; you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
In other words, Seminole County Sheriff’s Office would protect Deputy Andre just like Deputy Andre protects the 1,000-some children in his care at a local elementary school.
Over the next weeks and months, Deputy Andre underwent multiple scans, scopes and surgeries, but he had peace of mind, knowing that his employer had his back — and that UnitedHealthcare did as well.
“I had a 1-on-1 coach basically through UnitedHealthcare navigating and talking and dealing with the billing and dealing with the medical world that is so foreign to many of us,” he says. “Without that care — without the treatment, I wouldn’t have made it.”
His cancer, which is incurable, is manageable at the moment — and Deputy Andre is filled with gratitude to his employer.
“I am so blessed and thankful to be OK,” he says. “But all of that is because of my Sheriff providing the best medical plan that many have ever seen or heard of.”
