Efforts to improve the quality and safety of care are being driven in part by a growing focus on public reporting. This commentary shares the potential for the unintended consequences of reporting on flawed performance measures, using time to first antibiotic dose (TFAD) in patients with pneumonia as an example. The authors discuss the background data for this particular quality measure, how it was translated into a performance standard, and the response it generated from emergency departments as well as payers, regulators, and professional societies. The authors conclude with a number of lessons learned from this case example, including the tension that results from having providers balance their desire to do the right thing with the public's view of their quality of care when they are in conflict with each other. A past AHRQ WebM&M commentary discussed the unintended consequences of achieving a good report card on such measures.