The Associated Press — CVS Health beat Wall Street expectations and after releasing projections earlier this year that disappointed analysts, a new outlook Tuesday exceeds those levels.

The national drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager now expects adjusted per-share earnings to range from $7.56 to $7.68, exceeding industry analyst projections for $7.53, according to a survey by FactSet.

Growing Medicaid and Medicare coverage in the health care giant’s insurance business helped counter hits the company took from a weak cold and flu season and a tough comparison to last year’s first quarter, when customers stocked up on pharmacy supplies as the COVID-19 pandemic set in.

CVS Health Corp. on Tuesday reported first-quarter earnings of $2.22 billion.

Per-share profits were $1.68, but $2.04 if one-time gains and costs are removed. That easily beat the $1.72 Wall Street was looking for, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.

The drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager posted revenue of $69.1 billion, beating forecasts of $68.44 billion.

Shares rose about 2% before the opening bell.

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A portion of this story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CVS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CVS