From my experience it's a diagnosis that can take a while to get right. I've been stable for 5 months and hallucinating daily for 2.5 of those months with no mood episode whatsoever and even after a clean brain scan my pdoc wouldn't definitively diagnose me with schizoaffective. I've always had hallucinations and some paranoia verging on delusion and it hasn't always just been during an obvious mood episode. So I'm sorry if this post is not helpful but I don't really know what it takes to get a schizoaffective diagnosis. Apparently I don't have it yet.