10:35 AM EDT, 04/16/2024 (MT Newswires) -- UnitedHealth Group ( UNH ) shares gained on Tuesday after the health insurer reiterated its full-year adjusted earnings outlook, even as it absorbs the impact of the cybersecurity incident involving its Change Healthcare unit in February.

The company continues to expect adjusted earnings to be in a range of $27.50 to $28 a share for 2024. The consensus on Capital IQ is for $27.53. The guidance assumes an estimated per-share hit of $0.30 to $0.40 due to business disruptions arising from the cyberattack. A threat actor gained access to some of the Change Healthcare information technology systems in February.

UnitedHealth ( UNH ) shares climbed 6% in Tuesday trading.

"The vast majority of the 400,000 people of this enterprise have remained as usual intensely focused on delivering for all those we serve," Chief Executive Andrew Witty said during a conference call to discuss first-quarter results, according to a Capital IQ transcript. "Directly as a result of their hard work and the broad performance of our diversified businesses, we're able to reconfirm our full-year adjusted earnings outlook."

Overall, the incident is set to weigh on the company's full-year profit by $1.15 to $1.35 per share. Direct response costs are pegged at $0.85 to $0.95. The adjusted EPS outlook excludes the direct response costs and the sale of the firm's Brazilian operations. Including the sale and direct response costs of the cyberattack, net earnings are expected to be $17.60 to $18.20 per share.

For the three months through March 31, UnitedHealth ( UNH ) swung to a GAAP loss of $1.53 per share from earnings of $5.95 the year before, missing Wall Street's view for EPS of $6.31. The cyberattack impact totaled $872 million in the quarter, or $0.74 per share. On an adjusted basis, EPS came in at $6.91, up from $6.26 in the prior-year quarter, topping analysts' $6.62 estimate. The $6.91 adjusted EPS includes $0.25 in business disruption impacts.

Revenue advanced to $99.8 billion from $91.93 billion, ahead of the Street's forecast for $99.28 billion. The UnitedHealthcare segment, which provides health care benefits to people, including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, saw sales rise to $75.36 billion from $70.47 billion, with total domestic consumers served growing by nearly 2 million.

Revenue in the Optum business, which serves the global health care marketplace, climbed to $61.05 billion from $54.06 billion on an annual basis. Revenue from Optum Health and Optum Rx increased 16% and 12%, respectively.

UnitedHealth's ( UNH ) medical care ratio, which is used to measure medical costs as a percentage of premium revenue, reached 84.3% versus 82.2% in the 2023 quarter, due to Medicare funding reductions and the cyberattack. Total operating costs rose to $91.87 billion from $83.85 billion.

"Out of prudence, due to the potential for the cyberattack to affect claims receipt timing, we reflected an additional $800 million of claims reserves," Chief Financial Officer John Rex said on the call. "We'll continue with a judicious view as we progress over the next several quarters."