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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) establishes essential health benefits as the coverage standard for health plans sold in the individual and small-group markets for all fifty states and the District of Columbia, including the health insurance Marketplaces. “Pediatric services” is one of the required classes of coverage under the ACA. However, other than oral health and vision care, neither the act nor the regulations for implementing it define what these services should be. We investigated how state benchmark plans—the base plan chosen in each state as the standard or benchmark of coverage in that state under ACA rules—address pediatric coverage in plans governed by the essential health benefits standard. Our review of summaries of all the state benchmark plans found that no state specified a distinct pediatric services benefit class. Furthermore, although benchmark plans explicitly included multiple pediatric conditions, many plans also specifically excluded services for children with special health care needs. The Department of Health and Human Services has made a commitment in the essential health benefits regulations to review its approach for the 2016 plan year. Thus, our findings have implications for future regulations regarding the essential health benefits standard for pediatric services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treatment of patients with Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is based on the abnormalities of accelerated aging that affect the healing processes, combined with a fragile cardiovascular status. A classic HGPS case, of Korean ancestry, previously treated for severe coxa valga with bilateral varus osteotomies using blade plate fixation is presented. Complications over the blade plate area required removal of the hardware, after which the patient showed right-sided hypertonicity--determined to be a cerebrovascular accident. Subsequently, the patient returned almost completely to her presurgical neurologic status. Perioperative planning for HGPS patients should include risks that are typically considered in the planning for geriatric patient care.

Purpose: Treatment is indicated for simple bone cysts (SBC) with high risk of fracture. The cyst index was described as a method to determine if a cyst is at high risk or low risk of fracture., Study Design: The cyst index of 32 femoral and humeral SBCs was determined by 8 reviewers. The risk group cyst index was compared with whether a fracture took place. Sensitivities, specificities, and positive and negative predictive values were calculated across varying cutoff levels. Intraobserver and interobserver reliability testing for 10 cysts was made., Results: Receiver operator curves demonstrate that no cutoff value gave an acceptable level of both sensitivity and specificity. The mean value for the cyst index was significantly different for different observers (P < 0.05)., Conclusions: This study does not validate the cyst index to be an accurate predictor of fracture. The test has low intraobserver and interobserver reliability., Clinical Relevance: The cyst index cannot reliably discriminate between the patients that will fracture and those that will not.