DaVita CEO Thiry warns of 'challenging year' ahead

But Thiry also expounded on other pressures DaVita is facing. Those include:

• The implementation of health care exchanges under the federal Affordable Care Act in which a number of insurers have narrowed their provider networks to health-care companies that are willing to accept lower reimbursements in order to keep premium costs down.

Becase DaVita won’t accept some of the proposed new reimbursement rates, it is likely that it will be cut out of some of those networks and lose potential patient revenue growth, Thiry said.

• Proposed federal payment cuts of $135 billion over the next 10 years for the Medicare Advantage plans will hurt revenue being brought in by Healthcare Partners, the physician group that DaVita purchased last year.

• Commercial insurers are pressuring health care providers to take lower rates of reimbursement in return for the possibility of seeing more patients when some 32 million more people are expected to be insured under federal health care reform next year.

Ed Sealover covers government, health care, tourism, airlines and hospitality for the Denver Business Journal and writes for the "Capitol Business" blog. Phone: 303-803-9229.