When it comes to your health care, how do you define value?

For a growing number of employers in the region, there's a new, practical approach to answering that question when designing the medical benefit plans that provide health insurance coverage for most workers. Many experts believe the new definition of value could be the silver bullet for the health care cost crisis. Yet this new means of determining "value" is controversial and would limit the availability of certain services and procedures to those enrolled in health plans.

This new definition of health care value, known as "value-based benefits," determines the amount of coverage based on the value a patient receives from the product or service. In other words, how critical is it to one's life that he or she undergo a particular procedure or take a particular medication?

Read the complete article by Cowden Associates' Vince Wolf in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.