Maribel Dixon did not open South Beach Wellness Center because she needed a business. She opened it because the healthcare model she had been working inside was not delivering what her patients actually needed.
She had spent five years in internal medicine in New Port Richey. She was good at it. She managed complex chronic conditions, built relationships with patients, and learned at a level of depth that most nurse practitioners do not get the opportunity to reach early in their careers. But the system she was working in was built around volume. Short appointments. Reactive care. Patients who came in sick and left with a prescription and a follow-up date three months out.
She knew there was a better way to practice. So she built it.
South Beach Wellness Center opened as a Direct Primary Care practice because DPC removes the structural barriers that make good medicine hard. No insurance billing. No visit caps. No incentive to rush. Just a provider and her patients, with the time and the relationship to actually get somewhere together.
Maribel was born in Cuba. She came to the United States at nine years old.
She knows what it means to navigate a new country, a new language, and a healthcare system that was not built with you in mind. That experience shaped the way she practices. When a Spanish-speaking patient sits across from her and is able to describe their symptoms, their fears, and their history in their first language, something fundamentally different happens in that appointment. The clinical picture is clearer. The trust comes faster. The care is better.
She built a bilingual practice deliberately. For the Spanish-speaking community in Wesley Chapel, Land O’ Lakes, and the broader Pasco and Hillsborough corridor, South Beach Wellness Center is one of the few places where that barrier does not exist at the provider level.
Se Habla Español.
Maribel earned both her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and her Master of Science in Nursing with a specialty in Family Nurse Practitioner from South University in Savannah, Georgia. During her academic tenure, she was inducted into Sigma Theta Tau, the international nursing honor society that recognizes outstanding scholastic achievement and demonstrated nursing leadership. Membership is by invitation only.
She holds national board certification through the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the credentialing body for Family Nurse Practitioners in the United States. She is licensed in the State of Florida as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse.
WorldLink Medical's Advanced BHRT certification is one of the most rigorous evidence-based training programs available to clinicians in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. It requires completing intensive clinical education grounded in peer-reviewed research, not just manufacturer training. Very few nurse practitioners in the Wesley Chapel and Land O' Lakes area hold this certification.
EvexiPEL is a patented hormone pellet therapy system with quality and consistency standards that set it apart from generic compounded pellets. Becoming a certified EvexiPEL provider requires completing specific training in pellet insertion technique, patient selection, dosing protocols, and follow-up monitoring. Maribel is among a small number of certified EvexiPEL providers in this corridor.
Before opening South Beach Wellness Center, Maribel spent five years working alongside an internal medicine physician in New Port Richey. That experience gave her something most nurse practitioners develop slowly over many years on their own: deep fluency in complex chronic disease management.
She managed patients with diabetes, hypertension, thyroid disorders, cardiovascular disease, and the overlapping conditions that often come with them. She learned to read lab patterns over time rather than in isolation. She learned how chronic conditions interact with each other and with the medications used to treat them. That clinical foundation is what makes her approach to hormone therapy and weight loss medicine different from a provider who moved into these areas without it.
She has also given back to the profession that trained her. Maribel taught registered nurses at Rasmussen College in New Port Richey. She has served as a community preceptor for incoming nurse practitioners, guiding the next generation of advanced practice providers through the clinical education that turns academic training into real patient care.
She has been serving patients in the Tampa Bay area since November 2012.
Maribel runs a smaller patient panel than a conventional primary care practice. That is not a limitation. It is a choice, and it is the choice that makes everything else possible.
When she sits with a patient, she is not watching the clock for the 12-minute mark. She is listening. She is asking the follow-up questions. She is looking at the full lab picture in the context of symptoms rather than against a reference range that was built from population averages rather than individual optimal function.
Her patients have her direct line. When something comes up between appointments, they call or text. They do not navigate a phone tree or wait for a callback from a nurse who needs to relay the message to someone else before anyone makes a decision.
She involves patients in decisions about their own care. She explains what the labs mean in plain language. She presents options rather than mandates. Her patients leave appointments understanding their health, not just with a prescription in hand.
That approach is not a marketing strategy. It is the reason she left a conventional practice to build her own.
Maribel and her husband have two teenage sons who are active in school and community events. She volunteers at the local high school. She lives in and is part of the same community her patients come from.
South Beach Wellness Center is not a satellite location managed from a corporate office. It is a practice owned and operated by a provider who is accountable to her neighbors.
Maribel sees patients in person at South Beach Wellness Center, 2975 Allegra Way, Lutz, FL 33559, just north of Tampa Premium Outlets between Wesley Chapel and Land O’ Lakes. Virtual consultations are available throughout Florida.
New patients start with a free consultation for DPC memberships or a service-specific consultation for hormone therapy, weight loss, or other clinical services.
