No, having psychosis outside of an episode does not mean you qualify for a schizoaffective diagnosis. I think that's a common misconception about the diagnosis. In fact, I think it is a bad idea to diagnose someone with schizoaffective just because they have psychosis outside of an episode, even if the psychosis is persistent or occurs more than a few times.

Schizoaffective bipolar type *literally* implies that you have bipolar with schizophrenic symptoms. For example, flat affect, catatonia, word salad, warped thought processes, etc.. (Basically, there are certain behaviors/mannerisms that come packaged with disorders on the schizophrenic spectrum.) Also, in some cases, level of functioning is taken into consideration as well. Psychosis is just one symptom of schizophrenia.

I know personally that psychologists at one point thought I might have schizoaffective disorder because of my stubborn psychosis that never goes away no matter what. However, when I underwent specialized psychological testing, the psychologist said I didn't have enough of the schizophrenic type symptoms to qualify for such a schizoaffective diagnosis. For example, I have flat affect, flat vocal tone, social problems, isolation, etc., but the psychologist said I didn't 100% portray as someone who actually has schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like disorder. (Basically, I only somewhat portrayed and she wrote that down.)

People who do not have schizoaffective disorder but who have psychosis independent of mood episodes are supposed to be Dx'ed with bipolar w/ mood-incongruent psychotic features, using the shortened "with psychotic features" specifier. Since there is no such "bipolar 2 w/ psychotic features" label, I guess you're automatically Dx'ed with bipolar 1 even though you technically have bipolar 2 w/ psychotic features. I'm not sure why there is no such "bipolar 2 w/ psychotic features" label, but I don't think bipolar 2 has more than one diagnostic code to begin with.

Whatever you end up having, though, as long as you get treatment for your symptoms and your insurance doesn't complain about said treatment, then that's all that matters. But I just wanted to point out the differences between schizoaffective and the "psychotic features" BP specifier since, well, that was asked. I was confused myself until the psychologist who did my assessment told me the differences, and my therapist (also PhD psychologist) chimed in down the road.