Bell Pharmacy on June 25, 2023. Photo by Ryan Williams-Jent.
ST. PETERSBURG | The independently owned and operated Bell Pharmacy held its grand opening July 11, promising to become a beacon of care for LGBTQ+ patients in Tampa Bay.
“Bell Pharmacy is a promoter of health equity for all members of our LGBTQIA+ community,” its website reads. “From gender-affirming care to HIV treatment, we fight to ensure ALL patients receive excellent healthcare. And unlike other companies, we fly our pride flag year-round.”
That’s important to Bell Pharmacy CEO Dr. Tony Trunzo, a longtime ally whose brother is transgender. He says watching his journey, along with working in pharmacies lacking specialized services for LGBTQ+ patients, inspired him to open his business.
“When I worked in larger pharmacies, I found that the focus was more on the financial side, the metric side, than it was on the patients,” he explains. “As an independent pharmacy we can guarantee a much higher level of service.
“We know you by name and we know your needs,” Trunzo continues. “In a pharmacy that a big chain owns, the staff is constantly rotating … it’s much better to have a staff that’s here every day and knows exactly what’s going on. Especially when you’re dealing with a population that requires a higher touch like the LGBTQ+ population.”
Bell Pharmacy focuses on gender-affirming care, PrEP, antiretrovirals and other relevant therapies for the LGBTQ+ community with a staff of five. Trunzo expects his team will grow when appropriate to service more patients.
In addition to a safe space and personalized care, they also promise affordable medication solutions and customizable services. The pharmacy’s billing specialists work directly with insurance companies and can seek out grants and government assistance as needed, and prescriptions are available for discrete delivery.
The pharmacy also offers drug compounding, the process of combining, mixing or altering pharmaceutical ingredients to create medication tailored to the needs of a specific patient. These dosage forms can be used for dental preparations, hormone or sexual arousal products and even pet care.
“People are probably familiar with testosterone injections, but that’s not right for every patient,” Trunzo explains. “We can take testosterone and make it into a daily cream or a daily lozenge that patients can take, which helps better mimic how the body actually releases testosterone, and that’s something you can apply across a lot of the pharmaceutical compounding we do.”
It’s a process that requires the pharmacy to work more closely with physicians as “a part of the health care team,” a key part of their mission.
“We want to work with the patient and provider to maximize health care outcomes and to make sure the patient is living their best health care life,” Trunzo notes. He says that may be difficult for some members of the LGBTQ+ community right now, particularly Floridians who are transgender.
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get the patient their medicine, and we want to design a network of resources that allows patients to seek it in a sanctioned way, because we feel that’s the safest way,” he says. The pharmacy’s commitment to equitable gender-affirming care includes a compounding program for alternative hormone replacement therapy and $10 conventional hormone treatments.
Bell Pharmacy is open Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. They’re currently offering a $10 retail gift card for patients interested in transferring their prescriptions.
“We’re not the first pharmacy to be LGBTQ+-friendly in the area, but I think we’re one of the first who are owner operated and aren’t connected to a big and nebulous nonprofit or a corporation,” Trunzo notes. “One promise I will always make to patients is I will never allow this company to trade capital for care.”
View photos from their grand opening below:
Bell Pharmacy is located at 3535 Central Ave. in St. Petersburg. For more information about their services and to transfer your prescriptions, call 813-689-2273 or visit BellSpecialtyPharmacy.com.
