When hospitals buy doctors' offices, and patient fees soar

Imagine you're a Medicare patient, and you go to your doctor for an ultrasound of your heart one month. Medicare pays your doctor's office $189, and you pay about 20 percent of that bill as a co-payment. Then, the next month, your doctor's practice has been bought by the local hospital. You go to the same building and get the same test from the same doctor, but suddenly the price has shot up to $453, as has your share of the bill. Patients around the country are getting that unpleasant surprise, as more and more doctors' offices are being bought by hospitals.