Good Afternoon all. I did come up with a work around with a DB::select.
$data = DB::select(
'select *
from users
join provider_user on users.id = provider_user.user_id
WHERE provider_user.provider_id = :provider
AND (firstname LIKE :query1
OR lastname LIKE :query2
OR lastname LIKE :query3)', ['provider'=> $provider_user->provider_id, 'query1' => '%'.$query.'%', 'query2' => '%'.$query.'%', 'query3' => '%'.$query.'%']
);
Why am I using query1, query2 etc when they are all the same. You cannot reuse a name parameter. However, my initial post still stands. Wh would that not work?