Implementing User-Defined "Wait For" time

Would it be better if I just take whatever the 16-bit input is and store it to a variable?

So, if I got an input of say 250ms (0000 0000 1111 1010), store the binary input into a variable, run a process with an infinite loop and compare the value of a temp variable against the binary value... if it doesn't match, then the temp variable's value is incremented with a 1. Repeat until bit patterns match... once matched, it's assumed 250ms has elapsed.

Is this correct? Or am I seriously overlooking something?