Peer Comparison: How We Build Your Comparison Group
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What this covers
When you see "peers" on a Practice metric, this explains how that comparison group gets built and what the geography label actually means.
The short version
Peers are physicians in your specialty, matched at the geographic level that most accurately reflects your practice area, and has enough peer data to make a fair comparison. If there aren't enough nearby, the comparison automatically widens out until the comparison pool is large enough.
The geography levels, in the order Jiro checks them
Geography peer classification follows the waterfall of CBSA → County → State → National.
- CBSA (Core-Based Statistical Area): A federal designation the Census Bureau and Office of Management and Budget use to group counties around a shared urban core, based on commuting patterns between them rather than city or state boundaries. A CBSA can span multiple counties, and sometimes multiple states, if people in those areas commonly commute into the same urban center for work.
- For example, "Boston-Cambridge-Newton" is a single CBSA that pulls in parts of both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, so your comparison group is built around how people actually live and work in that area, not around where a state line happens to fall. This is usually the most local, and most relevant, comparison available.
- County: Used if you're not located within a CBSA, which is common in more rural areas. CBSAs only exist around a qualifying urban core, so a county is the next available option where one hasn't been defined.
- State: Used when county-level data is still too thin.
- National: Used when state-level data is still too thin, or shown alongside your local comparison as a broader reference point.
Why your comparison level might not be what you'd expect
Jiro looks for the most local and reflective level with enough physicians in your specialty (generally at least 5) to protect anonymity and produce a meaningful comparison. If your specialty is uncommon in your area, you may be compared at a broader level than you'd expect. That's not a sign of a problem, it just means there wasn't enough local data yet.
Still need help?
Reach out to support using the help button in the app or by emailing support@jirohealth.com