DaVita Inc. DVA is scheduled to release first-quarter 2022 results on May 5, after market close.

In the last reported quarter, the company's earnings of $2.02 per share surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 12.2%. Over the trailing four quarters, its earnings outperformed the Zacks Consensus Estimate on all occasions, delivering an earnings surprise of 14.6%, on average.

Let's see how things have shaped up prior to this announcement.

Factors at Play

In January, DaVita's Integrated Kidney Care announced the launch of 11 value-based care programs across the United States, which are expected to reach an estimated 25,000 kidney patients. The programs' goals are to help slow the progression of chronic kidney disease and help more kidney failure patients access kidney transplants and dialysis in at home. This is expected to have boosted first-quarter revenues on the back of patient enrolment for dialysis care.

During the fourth-quarter 2021 call, DaVita confirmed that it has been registering incremental mortality due to the pandemic over the past few months. The company expects this to increase in the to-be-reported quarter, primarily on a significant uptick in infections in January.

DaVita is likely to have derived benefits from a higher final Medicare rate update and a partial extension of Medicare sequestration relief in the to-be-reported quarter. However, the possibility of registering incremental mortality as well as wage rate pressure is likely to have weighed on the company's top line.

DaVita Inc. Price and EPS Surprise

DaVita Inc. price-eps-surprise | DaVita Inc. Quote

DaVita announced the acquisition of MedSleuth in early January. The latter's software enables closer partnerships and better coordination between transplant centers, nephrologists and kidney care providers, with all three working together to support the company's patient transplant journey.

In February, DaVita announced that according to a DaVita Clinical Research study, dialysis patients who received an adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine (Johnson & Johnson) were found to have similar rates of breakthrough infection, hospitalization and mortality as dialysis patients who received an mRNA-based vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech). These developments raise optimism about the stock.

However, DaVita has been witnessing a supply shortage primarily related to dialysis, with respect to a fluid solution used in hemodialysis to filter toxins and fluid from the blood for the past few months. This is likely to have weighed on the company's first-quarter 2022 top line.