UnitedHealth Group Inc. executives said the COVID-19 pandemic had a limited impact on the company's first-quarter results, but they expect that to "play out differently" as the year goes on.

CFO John Rex noted that reduction in elective care and the increase of incidence of infections caused by the novel coronavirus in the U.S. started in the middle of March, which was at the tail end of the reporting period. While the company maintains its EPS outlook for the full year, Rex anticipates "other key investor conference metrics likely will play out differently than we expected at that time and our quarterly progression will likely vary from historical patterns."

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Those metrics include the managed care insurer's medical loss ratio, which came in at 81.0% for the first quarter. Rex said the second-quarter MLR could be the lowest of the year because of limits on elective care in favor of COVID-19 treatment. That number could be "meaningfully elevated" in the second half of the year, however.

"People will hopefully have more comprehensive care access by the second half of the year and some of the currently deferred care can be restored," Rex said.

When that actually happens is still an unknown.

"The situation is just so different than anything we've seen before," the CFO said. "In terms of us trying to ... understand both when systems are up, open and operating, when comfort levels are there to reengage with systems, [those] are elements that we certainly haven't experienced yet."

CEO Dirk McMahon said because of the pandemic, UnitedHealth expects commercial enrollment trends to be "down for the year" as businesses closed and employee payrolls shrink. He does anticipate, however, increases in Medicaid and "our individual products to ultimately offset some of the losses we experienced in the commercial group business."